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A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 



By THE SAME Author 



A DOMINIE'S LOG 

A DOMINIE DISMISSED 

Thirty-six thousand copies of the above 
books have now been called for. 

THE BOOMING OF BUNKIE 
A book of laughter. 



A 


DOMINIE 


IN 


DOUBT 


A. 


BY 
S. NEII.I., M.A. 


New York 

ROBERT M. Mc BRIDE & CO. 

192a 




■5 3- 



Printed in Oreet Bntain by Love A Mateomson, Ltd,, 
London and RedhUl. 



> 



DEDICATION. 

To Homer Lane, whose first lecture con- 
vinced me that I knew nothing about education. 
I owe much to him, but I hasten to warn 
educationists that they must not hold him 
responsible for the views given in these pages. 
I never understood him fully enough to expound 
his wonderful educational theories. 

A. S. N. 

Forfar, 
August 12, 1920. 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 



" TTUST give me your candid opinion of 
I A Dominie's Log ; Vd like to hear it." 
Macdonald looked up from digging 
into the bowl of his pipe with a dilapidated 
penknife. He is now head-master of Tar- 
bonny Public School, a school I know well, 
for I taught in it for two years as an ex-pupil 
teacher. 

Six days ago he wrote asking me to come 
and spend a holiday with him, so I hastily 
packed my bag and made for Euston. 

This evening had been a sort of compli- 
mentary dinner in my honour, the guests 
being neighbouring dominies and their wives, 
none of whom I knew. We had talked of the 
war, of rising prices, and a thousand other 
things. Suddenly someone mentioned educa- 
tion, and of course my unfortunate Log had 
come under discussion. 

I had been anxious to continue my dis- 
cussion with a Mrs. Brown on the subject 
of the relative laying values of Minorcas and 
Buff Orpingtons, but I had been dragged 
into the miserable business in spite of myself. 



10 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

Now they were all gone, and Macdonald 
had returned to the charge. 

" It's hardly a fair question," said Mrs. 
Macdonald, " to ask an author what he thinks 
of his own book. No man can judge his 
own work, any more than a mother can judge 
her own child." 

" That's true ! " I said. " A man can't 
judge his own behaviour, and writing a book 
is an element of behaviour. Besides, there 
is a better reason why a writer cannot judge 
his own work," I added. 

" Because he never reads it ? " queried 
Macdonald with a grin. 

I shook my head. 

" An author has no further interest in his 
book after it is pubHshed." 

Macdonald looked across at me. It was 
clear that he doubted my seriousness. 

" Surely you don't mean to say that you 
have no interest in A Dominie's Log?** 

" None whatever ! " I said. 

'* You mean it ? " persisted Macdonald, 

'' My dear Mac," I said, *' an author dare 
not read his own book." 

" Dare not ! Why ? " 

" Because it's out of date five minutes 
after it's written." 

For fully a minute we smoked in silence. 
Macdonald appeared to be digesting my 
remark. 

*' You see," I continued presently, " when 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT ii 

I read a book on education, I want to learn, 
and I certainly don't expect to learn anything 
from the man I was five years ago." 

" I think I understand," said Macdonald. 
" You have come to realise that what you 
wrote five years ago was wrong. That 
it?" 

"True for you, Mac. YouVe just hit it." 

" You needn't have waited five years to 
find that out," he said, with a good-natured 
grin. *' I could have told you the day the 
book was pubHshed — I bought one of the 
first copies." 

" Still," he continued, *' I don't see why 
a book should be out-of-date in five years. 
That is if it deals with the truth. Truth is 
eternal." 

" What is truth ? " I asked wearily. " We 
all thought we knew the truth about gravita- 
tion. Then Enstein came along with his rela- 
tivity theory, and told us we were wrong." 

" Did he ? " inquired Macdonald, with a 
faint smile. 

" I am quoting from the newspapers," I 
added hastily. " I haven't the remotest idea 
what relativity means. Perhaps it's Epstein 
I mean — ^no, he's a sculptor." 

" You're hedging ! " said Macdonald. 

" Can you blame me ? " I asked. " You're 
trying to get me to say what truth is. I 
am not a professor of philosophy, I'm a 
dominie. All I can say is that the Log was 



12 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

the truth . . . for me . . . five years ago ; 
but it isn't the truth for me now." 

*' Then, what exactly is your honest opinion 
of the Log as a work on education ? " 

'* As a work on education/' I said deliberately, 
'* the Log isn't worth a damn/' 

" Not a bad criticism, either," said Mac- 
donald dryly. 

*' I say that," I continued, *' because when 
I wrote it I knew nothing about the most 
important factor in education — the psychology 
of children." 

'* But," said Mrs. Macdonald in surprise — 
hitherto she had been an interested listener — 
" I thought that the bits about the bairns 
were the best part of the book." 

" Possibly," I answered, '' but I was looking 
at children from a grown-up point of view. 
I thought of them as they affected me, instead 
of as they affected themselves. I'll give you 
an instance. I think I said something about 
wanting to chuck woodwork and cookery out 
of the school curriculum. I was wrong, hope- 
lessly wrong." 

'' I'm glad to hear you admit it," said Mac- 
donald. " I have always thought that every 
boy ought to be taught to mend a hen-house 
and every girl to cook a dinner." 

''Then I was right after all," I said 
quickly. 

Macdonald stared at me, whilst his wife 
looked up interrogatively from her embroidery. 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 13 

•' If your aim is to make boys joiners and 
girls cooks/' I explained, ''then I still hold 
that cookery and woodwork ought to be 
chucked out of the schools/' 

'' But, man, what are schools for ? " I 
saw a combative Hght in Macdonald's eye. 

" Creation, self-expression .... the only 
thing that matters in education. I don't 
care what a child is doing in the way of 
creation, whether he is making tables, or 
porridge, or sketches, or — or — " 

" Snowballs ! " prompted Macdonald. 

"Or snowballs," I said. ''There is more 
true education in making a snowball than 
in hstening to an hour's lecture on grammar/' 

Mrs. Macdonald dropped her embroidery 
into her lap, with a little gasp at the heresy 
of my remark. 

" You're talking pure balderdash ! " said 
Macdonald, leaning forward to knock the ashes 
from his pipe on the bars of the grate. 

" Very well," I said cheerfully. " lyCt's dis- 
cuss it. You make a class sit in front of 
you for an hour, and you threaten to whack 
the first child that doesn't pay attention 
to your lesson on nouns and pronouns." 

" Discipline," said Macdonald. 

" I don't care what you call it. I say it's 
stupidity." 

" But, hang it all, man, you can't teach 
if you haven't got the children's attention." 
And you can't teach when you have got 



n 



14 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

it/' I said. *' A child learns only when it 
is interested." 

" But surely, discipline makes them inter- 
ested/' said Mrs. Macdonald. 

I shook my head. *' It only makes them 
attentive." 

" Same thing," said Macdonald. 

''No, Mac," I replied. "It is not the 
same thing. Attention means the applying 
of the conscious mind to a thing ; interest 
means the application of both the conscious 
and the unconscious mind. When you force 
a child to attend to a lesson for fear of the 
tawse, you merely engage the least important 
part of his mind — ^the conscious. While he 
stares at the blackboard his unconscious is 
concerned with other things." 

" What sort of things ? " asked Macdonald. 

" Very probably his unconscious is working 
out an elaborate plan to murder you," I said, 
" and I don't blame it either," I added. 

" And the snowballs ? " queried Mrs. Mac- 
donald. 

'* When a boy makes a snowball, he is 
interested ; his whole soul is in the job, that 
is, his unconscious and his conscious are 
working together. For the moment he is an 
artist, a creator." 

'' So that's the new education . . . making 
snowballs ? " said Macdonald. 

"It isn't really," I said; "but what I 
want to do is to point out that making snow- 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 15 

balls is nearer to true education than the 
spoon-feeding we call education to-day." 



Duncan does not like me. He is a young 
dominie of twenty-three or thereabouts, a 
friend of Macdonald, and he has just been 
demobilised. He was a major, and he does 
not seem to have recovered from the ex- 
perience. He has got what the vulgar call 
swelled head. I^ast night he was dilating 
upon the deHnquencies of the old retired 
teacher who ran the school while Duncan 
was on active service. It seems that the 
old man had allowed the school to run to 
seed. 

" Would you beHeve it/' I overheard Duncan 
say to Macdonald, " when I came back I 
found that the boys and girls were playing 
in the same playground. Why, man, some 
of them were playing on the road ! And 
the discipHne ! Awful ! '' 

Poor children ! I see it all ; I see Duncan 
line them up like a squad of recruits, and 
march them into school with never a smile 
on their faces or a word on their lips. Mac- 
donald tells me that he makes them hit their 
slates by numbers. 

And the amusing thing is that Duncan 
thinks himself one of the more advanced 
teachers. He reads the educational journals, 



i6 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

and eagerly devours the articles about new 
methods in teaching arithmetic and geography. 
His school is only a mile and a half away, 
and I hope that he will come over to see 
Mac a few times while I am here. 

I have seen the old type of dominie, and 
I have seen the new type. I prefer the former. 
He had many faults, but he usually managed 
to do something for the human side of the 
children. The new type is a danger to 
children. The old dominie leathered the child- 
ren so that they might make a good show 
before the inspector ; the new dominie leathers 
them because he thinks that children ought 
to be disciplined so that they may be able 
to fight the battle of life. He does not see 
that by using authority he is doing the very 
opposite of what he intends ; he is making 
the child dependent on him, and for ever 
afterwards the child will lack initiative, lack 
self-confidence, lack originality. 

What the new dominie does do is to turn 
out excellent wage-slaves. The discipline of 
the school gives each child an inner sense 
of inferiority .... what the psycho-analysts 
call an inferiority complex. And the working- 
classes are suffering from a gigantic inferiority 
complex .... otherwise they would not be 
content to remain wage-slaves. The fear that 
Duncan inspires in a boy will remain in that 
boy all his life. When he enters the work- 
shop he will unconsciously identify the foreman 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 17 

with Duncan, and fear him and hate him. 
I beheve that many a strike is really a vague 
insurrection against the teacher. For it is 
well known that the unconscious mind is 
infantile. 



To-night I dropped in to see my old friend 
Dauvit Todd the cobbler. Many an evening 
have I spent in his dirty shop. Dauvit works 
on after teatime, and the village worthies 
gather round his fire and smoke and spit and 
grunt. I have sat there for an hour many 
a night, and not a single word was said. Peter 
Smith the blacksmith would give a great 
sigh and say : '' Imphm ! " There would be 
silence for ten minutes, and then Jake Tosh 
the roadman would stare at the fire, shake 
his head, and say : *' Aye, man ! " Then 
a ploughman would smack his lips and say : 
*' Man, aye ! '' A southerner looking in might 
have jumped to the conclusion that the 
assembly was collectively and individually 
bored, but boredom never enters Dauvit's 
shop. We Scots think better in crowds. 

To-night the old gang was there. The hypo- 
thetical southerner again would have marvelled 
at the reception I received. I walked into 
the shop after an absence of five years. 

" Weel, Dauvit,'' I said, and sat down in 
the basket chair. Dauvit and I have never 
shaken hands in our Uves. He looked up. 



i8 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

*' Back again ! '* he said, without any evi- 
dent surprise ; then he added : " And what 
like a nicht is 't ootside ? " 

Gradually other men dropped in, and the 
same sort of greeting took place. The weather 
continued to be discussed for a time. Then 
the blacksmith said : " Auld Tam Davidson's 
swine dee'd last nicht." 

Dauvit looked up from the boot he was 
repairing. 

'' What did it dee o' ? '* and there followed an 
argument about the symptoms of swine fever. 

An English reader of The House with the 
Green Shutters would have concluded that 
these villagers were deliberately trying to 
put me in my place. By ignoring me might 
they not be showing their contempt for 
dominies who have just come from London ? 
Not they. They were glad to see me again, 
and their method of showing their gladness 
was to take up our friendship at the point 
where it left off five years ago. 

The only time a Scot distrusts other Scots 
is when they fuss over him. The story goes 
in Tarbonny that when young Jim I^unan 
came home unexpectedly after a ten years' 
farming in Canada, his mother was washing 
the kitchen floor. 

" Mother ! " he cried, *' iVe come hame ! " 

She looked over her shoulder. 

'' Wipe yer feet afore ye come in, ye clorty 
laddie,'' she said. 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 19 

But there is a garrulous type of Scot . . . 
or rather the type of Scot that tries to make 
the other fellow garrulous. In our count}^ 
we call them the speerin' bodie. To speer 
means to ask questions. The speerin' bodie 
is common enough in Fife, and I suppose 
it was a Fifer who entered a railway com- 
partment one morning and sat down to study 
the only other occupant — an Englishman. 

*' It's a fine day/' said the Scot, and there 
was a question in his tone. 

The EngHshman sighed and laid aside his 
newspaper. 

" Aye, mester," continued the inquisitive 
Fifer, " and ye'll be " 

The Englishman held up a forbidding hand. 

" You needn't go on," he said ; " I'll tell 
you everything about myself. I was born 
in Ivceds, the son of poor parents. I left 
school at the age of twelve, and I became a 
draper. I gradually worked my way up, and 
now I am traveller for a Manchester firm. 
I married six years ago. Three kids. Wife 
has rheumatism. WilHe had measles last month . 
I have a seven room cottage ; rent £2y. I 
vote Tory ; go to the Baptist church, and 
keep hens. Anything else you want to know ? " 

The Scot had a very dissatisfied look. 

*' What did yer grandfaither dee o' ? " he 
demanded gruffly. 

When the argument about swine fever had 
died down, Dauvit turned to me. 



20 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

" Aye, and how is Lunnon lookin' ? " 

'* Same as ever/' I answered. 

" Yell have to tak' Dauvit doon on a trip," 
laughed the smith. 

Dauvit drove in a tacket. 

*' Man, smith, I was in lyunnon afore you 
was born,'' he said. 

" Go on, Dauvit," I said encouragingly, 
'' tell us the story." I had heard it before, but 
I longed to hear it again. Dauvit brightened up. 

" There's no muckle to tell," he said, as 
he tossed the boot into a corner and wiped 
his face with his apron. ''It'll be ten years 
come Martimas. Me and Will Tamson gaed 
up by boat frae Dundee. Oh ! we had a 
graund time. But there's no muckle to tell." 

'' What about Dave Brownlee ? " I asked. 

Dauvit chuckled softly. 

" But ye've a' heard the story," he said, 
but we protested that we hadn't. 

*' Aweel," he began, '' some of you will 
no doubt mind o' Dave Broonlee him that 
stoppit at Millend. Dave served his time 
as a draper, and syne he got a good job in 
a lyunnon shop. Weel, me and Will Tamson 
was walkin' along the Strand when Will he 
says to me, says he : ' Cud we no pay a veesit 
to Dave Broonlee ? ' Then I minded that 
Dave's father had said something aboot payin' 
him a call, but I didna ken his address. All 
I kent was that he was in a big shop in Oxford 
Street. 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 21 

" Weel, Will and me we goes up to a bobby 
and speers the way to Oxford Street. When we 
got there Will he goes up to another bobby 
and says : ' Please cud ye tell me whatna 
shop Dave Broonlee works intil ? ' At that 
I started to laugh, and syne the bobby he 
started to laugh. He laughed a lang time 
and syne when I telt him that it was a draper's 
shop he directed us to a great big muckle 
shop wi' a thousand windows. 

*' ' Try there first/ says the bobby. 

'' Weel, in we goes, and a mannie in a tail 
coat he comes forart rubbin' his hands. 

" ' And what can I do for you, sir ? ' he 
says to Will. 

" ' Oh/ says Will, ' we want to see Dave 
Broonlee,' but the man didna ken what Will 
was sayin'. It took Will and me twenty 
meenutes to get him to onderstand. 

'' * Oh,' says he, ' I understand now. You 
want to see Mr. Brownlee ? ' 

'* ' Ye're fell quick in the uptak,' says Will, 
but of coorse the man didna ken what he 
was sayin'. 

" He went to the backshop to speer aboot 
Dave, and when he cam back he says, sa^^s 
he : ' I'm sorry, but Mr. Brownlee has gone 
out to lunch. Will 3^ou leave a message ? ' 

" Will turned to the door. 

'* * Never mind,' says he, ' we'll see him 
doon the toon.' " -# 



22 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

In reading my Log I am appalled by the 
amount of lecturing I did in school. Since 
writing it I have visited most of the best 
schools in England, and I found that I was 
not the only teacher who lectured. But we 
are all wrong. I fancy that the real reason 
why I lectured so much was to indulge my 
showing-off propensities. To stand before a 
class or an audience ; to be the cynosure 
of all eyes ; to have a crowd hanging on your 
words .... all showing off ! Very, very 
human, but .... bad for the audience. 

When a teacher lectures he is unconsciously 
giving expression to his desire to gain a 
feeHng of superiority. That, I fancy, is the 
deepest wish of every one of us .... to 
impress others, to be superior. You see it 
in the smallest child. Give him an audience, 
and he will show off for hours. The boy 
at the top of the class gains his feeling of 
superiority by beating the others at arith- 
metic, while the dunce at the bottom of the 
class gains his in more original ways . . . 
punching the top boy at pla^^time, scoring 
goals at football, spitting farther than anyone 
else in school. I have seen a boy smash a 
window merely to draw attention to himself, 
and thus to gain a momentary feeling of 
superiority. 

And we grown-ups are boys at heart. The 
boy is the father to the man. Take, for 
instance, a childish trait — exhibitionism. Most 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 23 

children at an early age love to run about 
naked, to show off their bodies. I^ater the 
conventions of society make the child repress 
this wish to exhibit himself. But we know 
that a repressed wish does not die ; it merely 
buries itself in the unconscious. Many years 
later the exhibition impulse comes out in 
sublimated form as a desire to show off before 
the public .... hence our politicians, actors, 
actresses, street-corner revivalists, and — er — 
dominies. 

Now I hasten to add that there is nothing 
to be ashamed of in being a politician or a 
dominie. But if I lecture a class I am making 
the affair my show, and I am not the most 
important actor in the play ; I am the scene- 
shifter ; the real actors who should be declaim- 
ing their lines are sitting on hard benches 
staring at me and wondering what I am raving 
about. Each little person is thirsting to show 
his or her superiority, and he never gets the 
chance. Occasionally I may ask a sleepy- 
looking urchin what are the exports to Canada, 
and he may gain a slight feeling of superiority 
if he can tell the right answer. Yet I fancy 
that his unconscious self despises me and my 
question. Why in all the earth should I ask 
a question when I know the answer ? The 
whole thing is an absurdity. The only ques- 
tions asked in a school should be asked by the 
pupils. 

The truth is that our schools do not give 



24 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

education ; they give instruction. And it is 
so very easy to instruct, and so very easy 
to go on talking, and so very easy to whack 
Tommy when he does not listen. Our prosy 
lectures are wasted time. The children would 
be better employed playing marbles. 

Of course if a child asks for information 
that is a different story. He is obviously 

interested that is if he isn't trying to 

tempt you into a long explanation so that you 
will forget to hear his Latin verbs. Children 
soon understand our little vanities, and they 
soon learn to exploit them. 



" I had a scene in school to-day,'' remarked 
Mac while we were at tea to-night. 

" What happened ? " I asked. 

" Tom Murray was wrong in all his sums, 
and he wouldn't hold out his hand," and by 
Mac's grim smile I knew that the bold Tom 
had been conquered. 

" What would you have done in a case like 
that ? " asked Mac. 

" 1 would never have a case like that, Mac. 
If he had all his sums wrong I should sit down 
and ask myself what was wrong with my 
teaching." 

'' I didn't mean that," he said ; " what I 
meant was : what would you do if Tom defied 
you ? " 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 25 

*' That wouldn't happen either, Mac. Tom 
couldn't defy me because you can only defy 
an authority, and I'm not an authority." 

Mac shook his head. 

*' You won't convince me, old chap. A boy 
like Tom has to be dealt with with a firm 
hand." 

I studied his face for a time. 

** You know, Mac," I said, *' you puzzle me. 
You're one of the kindest decent est chaps in 
the world, and yet you go leathering poor Tom 
Murray. Why do you do it ? " 

** You must keep discipline," he said. 

I shook my head. 

" Mac, if you knew yourself you wouldn't 
ever whack a child." 

This seemed to tickle him. 

" Good Ivord ! " he laughed, " I could write 
a book about myself ! I'm one of the most 
introspective chaps ever born." 

" And you understand yourself ? " 

*' I have no illusions about myself at all, 
old chap. I know my limitations." 

" Well, would you mind telling me why 
you are a bit of a nut ? " I asked. '' It 
isn't usual for a country dominie to wear a 
wing collar, a bow tie, and shot-silk socks." 

*' That's easy," he said quickly. " I think 
that teachers haven't the social standing they 
ought to have, and I dress well to uphold the 
dignity of the profession. Don't you believe 
me ? " he demanded as I smiled. 



26 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

*' Quite ! I believe you're quite honest in 
your belief, but it's wrong you know. There 
must be a much more personal reason than 
that." 

" Rot ! " he said. " Anyway, what is the 
reason ? " 

'' I don't know, Mac ; it would take months 
of research to discover it. I can't explain 
your psychology, but I'll tell you something 
about my own. These swagger corduroys I'm 

wearing when I bought them someone 

asked me why I chose corduroy, and I at once 
answered : ' Economy ! They'll last ten years ! ' 
But that wasn't the real reason, I bought them 
because I wanted to have folk stare at me. 
I've got an inferiority complex, that is an 
inner feeling of inferiority. To compensate 
for it I go and order a suit that will make 
people look at me ; in short, that I may be the 
centre of all eyes, and thus gain a feeling of 
outward superiority." 

This sent Mac off into a roar of laughter. 

*' You're daft, man 1 " he roared. 

After a minute or two he said ; " But whq.t 
has all this to do with Tom Murray ? " 

*' A lot," I said seriously. " You think 
you whack Tom because you must have dis- 
cipline, but you whack him for a different 
reason. In your deep unconscious mind you 
are an infant. You want to show your self- 
assertion just as a kid does. You leather 
Tom because you've never outgrown your 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT. 27 

seven-year-old stage. On market-day, when 
Tom walks behind a drove and whacks the stots 
over the hips with a stick, he is doing exactly 
what you did this afternoon. You are both 
infants.'' 

I have had to give up lecturing Mac, for he 
always takes me as a huge joke. He is a good 
fellow, but he has the wonderful gift of being 
blind to anything that might make him re- 
consider his values. Many people protect them- 
selves in the same way — by laughing. I have 
more than once seen an alcoholic laugh heartily 
at his wrecked home and lost job. 



II. 



WHAT an amount of excellent material 
Mac and his kind are spoiling. Tom 
Murray is a fine lad, full of energy 
and initiative, but he has to sit passive at a desk 
doing work that does not interest him. His 
creative faculties have no outlet at all during 
the day, and naturally when free from authority 
at nights he expresses his creative interest anti- 
socially. He nearly wrecked the five-twenty the 
other night ; he tied a huge iron bolt to the 
rails. Mac called it devilment, but it was 
merely curiosity. He had had innumerable 
pins and farthings flattened on the line, and 
he wanted to see what the engine really 
could do. 

There is devilment in some of Tom's activities, 
for example in his deliberate destruction of 
Dauvit's apple tree. Mac and the law would 
give him the birch for that, but fortunately 
Mac and the law don't know who did it. Tom's 
destructiveness is only the direct result of 
Mac's authority. Suppression alwa^^s has the 
same result ; it turns a young god into a young 
devil. Had I Tom in a free school all his 
activities would be social and good. 

And yet nearly every teacher believes in 
Mac's way. They suppress all the time, and 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 29 

what is worst of all they firmly believe they 
are doing the best thing. 

'* lyook at Glasgow ! '' cried Mac the other 
night when I was talking about the crime of 
authority. '' Look at Glasgow ! What hap- 
pened there during the war ? Juvenile crime 
increased. And why? Because the fathers 
were in the army and the boys had no control 
over them ; they broke loose. That proves 
that your theories are potty.'' 

I believe that juvenile crime did increase 
during the war, and I believe that Mac's 
explanation of the phenomenon is correct. 
The absence of the father gave the boy libert}^ 
to be a hooligan. But no boy wants to be a 
hooligan unless he has a strong rebellion against 
authority. No boy is destructive if he is free 
to be constructive. I think that the difference 
between Mac and myself is this : he believes 
in original sin, while I believe in original 
virtue. 

I wonder why it is so difficult to convert 
the authority people to the new way of think- 
ing. There must be a deep reason why they 
want to cling to their authority. Authority 
gives much power, and love of power may be at 
the root of the desire to retain authority. 
Yet I fancy that it is deeper than that. In 
Mac, for instance, I think that his quickness 
in becoming angry at Tom's insubordination 
is due to the insubordination within himself, 
lyike most of us Mac has a father complex, 



3^ A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

and he fears and hates any authority exercised 
over himself. So in squashing Tom's rebellion 
he is unconsciously squashing the rebellion 
in his own soul. Tom's rebellion could not 
affect me because I have got rid of my father 
complex, and his rebellion would touch nothing 
in me. 

Authority will be long in dying, for too many 
people cling to it as a prop. Most people 
like to have their minds made up for them ; 
it is so easy to obey orders, and so difficult 
to live your own life carrying your own burden 
and finding your own path. To live your own 

life that is the ideal. To discover 

yourself bravely, to realise yourself fully, to 
follow truth even if the crowd stone you. 

That is living but it is dangerous living, 

for that way lies crucifixion. No one in 
authority has ever been crucified ; every martyr 

dies because he challenges authority 

Christ, Thomas More, Jim Connolly. 



Duncan and McTaggart the minister were in 
to-night, and we got on to the subject of wit 
and humour. Having a psycho-analysis com- 
plex I mentioned the theory'- that we laugh 
so as to give release to our repressions. The 
others shook their heads, and I decided to 
test mjT- theory on them. I told them the stor3'' 
of the golfer who was driving off about a foot 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 31 

in front of the teeing marks. The club secre- 
tary happened to come along. 

*' Here, my man ! " cried the indignant 
secretary, *' you're disqualified I " 

*' What for ? '' demanded the player. 

" You're driving off in front of the teeing 
mark." 

The player looked at him pityingly. 

*' Away, you bletherin' idiot 1" he said 
tensely, " I'm playing my third ! " 

" Now," I said to the others, " I'm going 
to tell you one by one what your golf is like. 
You, McTaggart, are a scratch man or a plus 
man. Is that so ? " 

" Plus one," he said in surprise. *' How 
did you guess ? " 

*' i didn't guess," I said with great superiority. 
" I found out by pure science. You didn't 
laugh at my joke ; you merely smiled. That 
shows that bad golf doesn't touch any complex 
inside you. The man who takes three strokes 
to make one foot of ground means nothing 
to you because, as I say, there's nothing in 
yourself it touches" 

" Wonderful ! " cried the minister. 

*' It's quite simple," I crowed, ** and now 
for Mac ! You, Mac, are a rotten player ; 
you take sixteen to a hole." 

" Only ten," protested Mac hastily. *' How 
the devil did you know ? I've never played 
with you." 

*' Deduction, my boy. You roared at my 



32 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

joke, because it touched your bad golf complex. 
In fact you were really laughing at yourself 
and your own awful golf/' 

'' What about me ? '' put in Duncan. 

Now there was something in Duncan's eye 
that should have warned me of danger, but I 
was so proud of my success that I plunged 
confidently. 

" Oh, you don't play golf," I said airily. 

" Wrong ! " he cried, '' I do ! And I'm worse 
than Mac too ! " 

I was astounded. 

" Impossible ! " I cried. *' You never laughed 
at my story at all ; that is it touched nothing 
whatsoever inside you." 

Duncan shook his head. 

*' You're completely wrong this time." 

*' Well, why didnt you laugh ? " I asked. 

He grinned. 

*' I dunno. Possibly it is because I first 
heard that joke in my cradle." 



Mac's infant mistress was off drity to-day 
owing to an attack of influenza, and he gladly 
accepted my ofTer to take her place. 

Half-an-hour after my entry into the room 
Mac came in to see how I w^as getting on. 
Most of the infants were swarming over me, 
and Mac frowned. At his frown they all crept 
back silently to their seats. 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 33 

'* You seem to have the fatal gift of demoralis- 
ing children/' he growled. 

It hadn't struck me before, but it is a fact ; 
I do demoralise children. Not long ago I 
entered a Montessori school, and I spoke not 
one word. In five minutes the insets and long 
stairs were lying neglected in the middle of the 
floor, and the kiddies were scrambling over 
me. I felt very guilty for I feared that if 
Montessori herself were to walk in she would 
be indignant. I cannot explain why I affect 
kiddies in this way. It may be that intuitively 
they know that I do not inspire fear or respect ; 
it may be that they unconscioUvSly recognise 
the baby in me. Anyway, as Mac says, it 
is a fatal gift. 

I think Miss Martin the infant mistress is a 
good teacher. Her infants do not fear her, 
and I am sure they love her. The only person 
they fear is Mac, poor dear old Mac, the most 
lovable soul in the world. He tries hard to 
show his love for the infants but somehow 
they know that behind his smile is the grim 
head-master who leathers Tom Murray. I 
sent wee Mary Smith into Mac's room to fetch 
some chalk to-day, and she wept and feared to 
enter. Occasionally, I believe, Mac will enter 
the room, seize a wee mite who is speaking 
instead of working, and give him or her a scud 
with the tawse. I wonder how a good soul 
like Mac can do it. 

I have an unlovely story of a board school. 



34 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

An infant mistress lay dying, and in her de- 
lirium she cried in terror lest her head-master 
should come in again and strap her dear, 
wee infants. It is a true story, and it is the 
most damning indictment of board school 
education anyone could wish for. She was a 
good woman who loved children, and if fear 
of her head-master brought terror to her on 
her deathbed, what terrors are such men in- 
spiring in poor wee infants ? The men who 
beat children are exactly in the pOvSition of 
the men who stoned Jesus Christ ; they know 
not what they do, nor do they know why they 
do it. 



There was a stranger in Dauvit's shop when 
I entered to-day, a seedy-looking whiskered 
man with a threadbare coat and extremely 
dirty linen. Shabby genteel would be the 
Scots description of him. 

Dauvit asked me a casual question about 
London, and the stranger became interested 
at once. 

** Ah,'' he said, *' you're from lyondon, are 
ye ? Man, yon's a great place, a wonderful 
place ! " 

I nodded assent. 

*' Man," he continued, '* yon's the place for 
sichts ! Could anything beat the procession 
at the I^ord Mayor's show, eh ? " 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 35 

I meekly admitted that I had never seen the 
lyord Mayor's show, and he raised his eyebrows 
in surprise. 

" But 111 tell ye what's just as good, mister, 
and that's the King and Queen opening Parlia- 
ment. Man, yon's a sicht, isn't it ? " 

'' I — er — I haven't had the opportunity of 
seeing it," I said. 

He looked more surprised than ever. 

" But, man, I'U teU ye what's just as good, 
and that's a big London fire. Man, to see the 
way the firemen go up the ladders like monkeys. 
Yon's a sicht for sair een ! " 

'* I never had the luck to see a fire in lyondon/' 
I said hesitatingly. " When were you last in 
town ? *' 

He did not seem to hear my question ; he 
was evidently thinking of other London 
thrills. 

*' Man," he said ruminatingly, " often while 
I sit in the Tarbonny Kirk I just sit and 
think aboot Westminster Abbey. Man, yon's 
a kirk ! I suppose you'll be there ilka 
Sunday ? " 

I found it difficult to tell him that I had 
never been in the Abbey, but I managed to 
get the words out, and then I avoided his 
reproachful eye. He knocked out his pipe, 
and I took the action to be a symbolic one 
meaning : You are an empty sort of person. 
He studied me critically for a time, then he 
brightened. 



36 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

"Aye/* he said cheerfully, ''Ivondon's a 
graund place, but, for sichts give me New 
York/' 

I felt more humble than ever, for I had never 
travelled. He seemed to guess that by the 
look of me, for he never asked my opinion of 
New York. 

*' Man,'' he said warmly, " yon's a place ! 
Yon sk^^scrapers ! Phew ! " and he whistled 
his wonder and admiration. " And the streets ! 
Man, ye canna walk on the sidewalk at the busy 
times. A w^onderfu' place. New York, but, 
as for me, give me the West, California and 
'Frisco." 

" You have travelled much, sir," I said 
reverently. The '' sir " seemed to come 
naturally ; my inferiority complex was touched 
on the raw. 

Again he ignored me. 

'' To see yon cowboys ! Man, yon's what I 
call riding ! And the Indians ! " 

He sighed ; it was obvious that he was living 
over again his life in the western wilds. A 
wistful look crept into his eyes, and I began to 
construct his sad story. He loved a maid, 
but the bruiser of the camp loved her also 
..... hence the broken-down clothes, the 
dirty collar. But anon he cheered up again. 

"Yes,'^ he said, '' 1 love the West, but 
for colour and climate give me Japan." 

I was so confused now that I had to blow 
out my pipe vigorously. I glanced at Dauvit, 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 37 

but he was sharpening his knife on the emery 
hone, and did not appear to be interested. 
I felt a vague anger against Dauvit ; why 
wasn't he helping me in my trial ? 

*' Japan/' continued the irrepressible stranger, 
*' is one of the finest countries in the world, 
but, for cHmate give me Siberia/' 

I hastily thought to myself that if I were 

Lenin I but I did not follow out my 

daydream, for the stranger brought me back to 
earth by inquiring what was my honest and 
unbiassed opinion of the Peruvians. I very 
cleverly pretended that I had swallowed some 
nicotine, and, after a polite pause for my 
answer, he went off to the subject of pearl 
fishing at Thursday Island. Then he looked at 
Dauvit's clock. 

" Jerusalem ! " he gasped, '* the pub shuts 
at twa o'clock ! " and he rushed out of the shop. 
I heaved a great sigh of reHef , and then I heaved 
a greater sigh of relief. 

I seized Dauvit by the arm. 

'' Dauvit," I gasped, ** who — who is your 
cosmopolitan friend ? " 

" ]\Iy what kind o' a friend ? " 

'' Your world-travelled friend, Dauvit. Tell 
me w^ho he is." 

Dauvit laughed softly. 

'* That," he said, '* was Joe Mill. He bides 
wi' his old mother in that cottage at the foot 
o' the brae. To the best o' my knowledge 
he hasna been further than Perth in his Ufa." 



3» A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

" But ! '' I cried in amazement, '* he has been 
everywhere ! '* 

" He hasna/' said Dauvit shortly, " but 
he works the cinema lantern at the Farfar 
picter hoose." 



I had a long talk to-night with Macdonald 
about self-government in schools, and I told 
him of my plans for running a self-governing 
school in Highgate. At the end of the dis- 
cussion I had the biggest surprise of my life. 
Mac smoked for a long time in silence, then 
he turned to me suddenly. 

" Look here, old chap, I'll have a shot at 
introducing self-government to-morrow/' he said 
with enthusiasm. 

I grasped his hand. 

" Excellent ! Mac, you're a wonder ! You're 
a brave man ! " 

*' I don't feel brave," he said nervously. 
" It's going to be a very difficult job." 

''It is," I said grimly, " and the most 
difficult part is for you to keep out of it." 

" What do you mean ? " 

" I mean that you have been an authority 
for so long that you'll find yourself issuing 
orders unthinkingly. More than that the kid- 
dies are so much dependent on you that they 
will wait to see how^ you vote." 

*' What's the best way to begin it ? " he 
asked. 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 3c 

" Simply walk in to-morrow and say : ' I^ook 
here, you are going to govern yourselves. I 
have no power ; I won't order anyone to do 
anything ; I won't punish anyone. Now, do 
what you Hke \" 

Mac looked frightened. 

** But, good Lord, man, they'll — ^they'll 
wreck the school ! " 

" Funk ! " I laughed. 

His eyes were full of excitement. 

'' It'll be an awful job to keep my hands 
off them," he said half to himself. 

** Funk ! " I said again 

" It's all very well, but well, I'm 

rather strict you know." 

*' So much the better ! All the better a 
row ! " 

" You Bolshevist ! " he laughed. He was 
like a boy divided between two desires — to 
steal the apples and to escape the policeman. 
I half feared that his courage would desert 
him. 

'' Here," he said, " why not come over to 
school ? " 

The temptation was great and I wavered. 

" No," I said at last, " I can't do it. My 
presence would distract the children, and .... 
they won't smash all the windows in front of 
a stranger. You want my support, you dodger!" 

But I would give ten pounds to be in Mac's 
schoolroom to-morrow morning. 



40 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

I went out this morning and sat on the school 
wall and smoked my pipe. I strained my 
ears for the first murmur of the approach- 
ing storm. Not a sound came from the 
schoolroom. 

" Mac has funked it after all/' I groaned, 
and went in to help Mrs. Macdonald to pare 
the potatoes. 

When Mac came over at dinner-time his face 
wore a thoughtful look. 

" You coward ! '' I cried. 

" Coward ! " he laughed. '* Why, man, the 
scheme is in full swing ! " 

Then I asked him to tell me all about it. 

" Your knowledge of children is all bunkum,'' 
he began. " You said there would be a row 
when I announced that I gave up authority." 

" And wasn't there ? " 

*' Not a vestige of one. The kids stared 
at me with open mouth, and " 

" And what ? " 

''Oh, the}^ simply got out their books and 
began their reading lesson. As quiet as mice 
too." 

*' And do 3^ou mean to tell me that it made 
no difference ? " I asked. 

" None whatever. I tell you they just went 
on with the timetable as usual." 

" But didn't they talk to each other more ? *' 

" There wasn't a whisper." 

I considered for a minute. 

" What exactly did you say to them when 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 41 

you announced that they were to have self- 
government ? '' 

'' I just said what you told me last night/' 

'' Did you add anything ? " 

He avoided my eye. 

" Of course I said that I trusted them to 
carry on the school as usual/' he admitted 
reluctantly. 

" Thereby showing them that you didn't 
trust them at all," I explained. '* Mac, you 
must have been a thundering strict dis- 
ciplinarian. The kiddies are dead afraid of 
you. I fear that you'll never manage to have 
self-government. This fear of you must be 
broken, and you've got to break it.'* 

'' But how ? " he avSked helplessly. 

'' By coming down off your pedestal. You 
must become one of t?ie gang. One dramatic 
exhibition will do it." 

" What do you mean ? " 

*' Smash a window ; chuck books about the 

room anything to break this idea 

that you are an exalted being whose eye is 
Hke God's always ready to see evil."' 

Mac looked annoyed and injured. 

'* WHiat good will my fooling do ? '* he 
asked. 

'* But," I protested seriously, "' it's essential. 
You simply must break your authority if you 
are to have a free school. There can be no 
real self-expression if you are always standing 
by to stamp out slacking and noise." 



42 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

" But/' he protested, " didn't I tell 'em I 
was giving up my authority ? " 

" Yes, but they don't believe you. You've 
got the eye of an authority." 

He was by this time getting rather indignant. 

"I can't go the length you do," he said 
sourly. '' I'm not an anarchist." 

" In that case I'd advise you to chuck 
the experiment, Mac," I said with an indifferent 
shrug of my shoulders. The shrug nettled 
Mac ; he is one of the bull-dog breed, and I saw 
his lips set. 

*' I've begun it, and I won't chuck it," he 
said firmly. '' And I hope to prove that your 
methods are all wrong. I^et it come gradually ; 
that's what I say." 

When he came over at four o'clock his face 
glowed with excitement. He slapped me on 
the back with his heavy hand, 

'* Man," he cried, " it's going fine ! We had 
our first trial this afternoon." 

'* Go on," I said. 

" Oh, it was a first class start. Jim Inglis 
threw his pencil at Peter Mackie." 

" I hope he didn't miss," I said flippantly. 

Mac ignored my levity. 

'* And then I didn't know what to do. My 
first impulse was to haul him out and strap 
him, but of course I didn't. I just said to 
the class : ' You saw what Jim Inglis did ? 
You have to decide what is to be done about 
it '." 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 43 

" And they answered : ' Please, sir, give him 
the tawse ' 7 " 1 said. 

Mac laughed. 

*' That's exactly what they did say, but I 
told them that they were governing them- 
selves, and suggested that they elect a chair- 
man and decide by vote.'' 

** Bad tactics," I commented. '* You should 
have left them to settle their own procedure. 
What happened then ? " 

** They appointed Mary Wilson as chairman, 
and then John Smith got up and proposed 
that the prisoner get six scuds with the tawse 
from me. The motion was carried unani- 
mously." 

" You refused of course ? " I said. 

" Man, I couldn't refuse. I was alarmed, 
because six scuds are far too many for a little 
offence like chucking a pencil. I made them 
as light as possible." 

I groaned. 

*' What would you have done ? " he 
asked. 

*' Taken the prisoner's side," I said promptly, 
" I should have chucked every pencil in the 
room at the judge and jury. Then I should 
have pointed out that I refused to do the dirty 
work of the community." 

" But where does the self-government come 
in there ? " he protested. " Chucking things 
at the jury is anarchy, pure anarchy." 

" I know," I said simply. ** But then anarchy 



44 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

is necessary in your school. You don't mean 
to say that the children thought that throwing 
a pencil was a great crime ? What hap- 
pened was that they projected themselves 
on to you ; unconsciously they said : ' The 
Mester thinks this a crime and he would 
punish it severety/ They were trying to please 
you. I say that anarchy is necessary if these 
children are to get free from their dependence 
on you and their fear of you. So long as 
you refuse to alter your old values you can't 
expect the kids to alter their old values. 
Unless you become as a little child you 
cannot enter the kingdom of — er — self- 
government." 

I know that Mac's experiment will fail, 
and for this reason ; he wants his children to 
run the school themselves, but to run it accord- 
ing to his ideas of government. 



I think of an incident that happened when I 
was teaching in a school in London. I had 
a drawing lesson, and the children made vSo much 
noise that the teacher in the adjoining room 
came in and protested that she couldn't make 
her voice heard. The noise in my room seemed 

to increase and the lady came in again. 

The noise increased. 

Next day I went to my class. 

" You made such a noise yesterday that 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 45 

the teacher next door had to stop teaching. 
She rightly complained. Now I want to ask 
you what you are going to do about it.'' 

** You should keep us in order/' saidFindlay, 
a boy of eleven. 

" I refuse," I said ; " it isn't my job." 

This raised a lively discussion ; the majority 
seemed to agree with Findlay. 

** Anyway," I said doggedly, " I refuse to 
be your policeman," and I sat down. 

There was much talking, and then Joy got up. 

" I think we ought to settle it by a meeting, 
and I propose Diana as chairman." 

The idea was hailed with delight, and Diana 
was elected chairman and she took my desk 
seat and I went and sat down in her place. 

Joy jumped up again. 

** I propose that Mr. Neill be put out of the 



room." 



The motion was carried. 

" Righto ! " I said, as I moved to the door, 
** I'll go up to the staff -room and have a smoke. 
Send for me if you want me." 

I smoked a cigarette in the staff-room, 
and as I threw the stump into the grate Nancy 
came in. 

*' You can come down now." 

I went down. 

" Well," I said cheerily, " have you decided 
anything ? " 

" Yes," said the chairman, ** we have de- 
cided that " 



46 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT. 

Joy was on her feet at once. 

" I propose that we don't tell Mr. Neill 
what we have decided. We can ask him at 
the end of the week if he notices any difference 
in our behaviour.** 

Others objected, and the matter was put 
to the vote. The voting was a draw, and Diana 
gave the casting vote in favour of my being 
told. Then she said that the meeting had 
agreed that if anyone made a row in class, 
he or she was to be sent to Coventry for a 
whole day. 

*' What will happen if I speak to the one that 
has been sent to Coventry ? '* asked Wolodia. 

'* We'll send you to Coventry too," said 
Diana, and the meeting murmured agreement. 

No one was ever sent to Coventry, but I 
had no further complaints against the class. 
One interesting feature in the affair was this : 
Violet, a lively girl full of fun, one day got up 
and, as a joke, proposed that Mr. Neill be sent 
to Coventry. The others, usually willing to 
laugh with Violet, protested. 

''That's just silly, Violet," they said. " If 
you propose silly things like that we'll send 
you to Coventry.'' 

Then someone got up and proposed that 
Violet be sent to Coventry for being silly, 
and Diana at once took the chair. I got up 
and moved the negative, pointing out that I 
made no charge against her, and she was 
acquitted by a majority of one. I mention 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 47 

this to show that children of eleven and twelve 
can take their responsibilities seriously. 

When I told the story to Macdonald he said : 
'* But wh^T- didn't you join in their noise ? " 

" For two reasons, Mac/' I said. *' Firstly 
these children were not under the suppression 
of government schools : secondly it wasn't 
my school." 



Til. 



THE servant girl at the Manse has had 
an illegitimate child, and Meg Caddam, 
the out-worker at East Mains is cutting 
her dead. Thus the gossip of Mrs. Macdonald. 
Meg Caddam is the unmarried mother of 
three. 

I have noticed again and again that the 
most severe critic of the unmarried mother 
is the unmarried mother, and I have many a 
time wondered at the fact. Now I know the 
explanation ; it is the familiar Projection of 
a Reproach. Meg feels guilty because of her 
three children, but her guilt is repressed, 
driven down into the unconscious. 

She dare not allow her conscious mind to 
face the truth, for then the truth would lower 
her self-respect ; it would be unpleasant, out 
of harmony with her ego-ideal. But it is easy 
for her to project this inner reproach on to 
someone else, hence her blaming of the Manse 
lassie. Meg Caddam is really condemning her- 
self, but she does not know it. 

I used to despise the Meg Caddams as hypo- 
crites, but, poor souls, they are not hypocrites. 
Their condemnation of their fallen sisters is 
genuine. It is wonderful how we all manage 
to divide our minds into compartments. Sandy 

48 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 49 

Marshall of Brigs Farm is a most religious 
man, yet the other day he was fined for watering 
his milk. It is unjust to say that his religion 
is hypocritical. What happens is that his 
religion is shut up in one compartment of his 
mind, and his dishonesty is shut up in another 

compartment and there is no 

direct communication between the compart- 
ments. 

The mind is like one of the older railway 
carriages ; education's task is to convert the 
old carriage into a new corridor carriage with 
communication between the compartments. 
Meg Caddam's own transgression against cur- 
rent morality is locked up in one compartment ; 
her condemnation of the Manse girl is in another 
compartment. There is an unconscious com- 
munication, but there is no conscious communi- 
cation. I don't know what Meg would say 
if a cruel friend pointed out to her that she 
also was a fallen woman. 

I think that the gossip of this village mostly 
consists of projected reproaches. Liz Ramsay, 
an old maid and the super-gossip of Tarbonny, 
came into the schoolhouse this morning. 

'' Do ye ken this,'' she said to Mrs. Mac- 
donald, '' it's my opeenion that Mrs. Broon 
died o' neglect. I went to the door the day 
afore she died to speer hoo she was, and her 
daughter cam to the door, and do ye ken this ? 

That lassie was smiling smilin' 

and her auld mother upstairs at death's door. 



50 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

Eh, Mrs. Macdonald, she's a heartless woman 
that Mary Broon. She killed her mother b}^ 
neglect, that's what she did/' 

After she had gone I said to Mrs. Macdonald : 
** Who nursed lyiz's mother when she died last 
June ? " 

*' Nobody," said Mrs. Macdonald grimly. 
'* lyiz had too much gossip to retail in the 
village, and I'm told that lyiz was seldom in the 
house." 

I think I am guessing fairly rightly when I 
say that Liz feels guilty of neglecting her own 
mother, and like Meg Caddam she projects 
the reproach on to someone else. 



lyast Friday night I gave a lecture to the 
lyiterary Society in Tarby, our nearest town. 
I chose the subject of forgetting, and I told 
the audience of Freud and his great work in 
connection with the unconscious. To-day's 
Tarby Herald in reporting the lecture prints 
phonetically the spelling *' Froid," but the 
Tarby Observer goes one better when it says : 
'' Mr. Neill is an exponent of the new science of 
Cycloanalysis." 

Which reminds me of a painful episode 
that took place when I was eighteen. I was 
much enamoured of a young university student, 
and I always strove to gain her favour by 
being interested in the things she liked. One 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 51 

day she informed me that she intended to take 
the Psychology class at St. Andrews the fol- 
lowing session. I had never heard the word 
before, and I made a bold guess that it had 
something to do with cycles. In consequence 
we talked at cross purposes for a while. 

"I'd love a subject like that/' I said warmly. 

" Most of it will be experimental psychology/' 
she said. 

My enthusiasm increased. I thought of the 
many experiments I had tried with my old 
cushion-tyred cycle 

" Excellent ! " I cried. " A sort of training 
in inventing. Cranks, eh P " At that time my 
one ambition in life was to invent a folding 
crank that would give double power on hills. 

The lady looked at me sharply. 

" Why cranks ? " she demanded. " I don't 
see it. Psychology has nothing to do with 
crystal-gazing you know." 

I was gravelled. 

" But what's the idea ? " I asked. " Im- 
provement of design ? " 

This made her think hard. 

" H'm, yes, I think I know what you mean," 
she said slowly. " But remember that before 
you can improve the psyche you must know 
the psyche." 

I hastened to agree. 

" Certainly, but all the same there is much 
room for improvement. You don't want to 
come off at every hill, do y ? " 



52 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

This seemed to make her more thoughtful 
still. 

'* No/' she said, " but don't you think that 
the mind makes the hill ? '' 

This staggered me. 

'' Eh ? '' I gasped. " Mean to say that 
I broke my chain on I,ogie Brae yesterday 
because '* 

'' I'm afraid it is too difficult for me/' she 
said apologetically. *' I get lost in metaphors." 

Then I asked her something about ball 
bearings, and she threw me a grateful smile 
. . . . for changing the subject — as she 
thought. 

The most amusing joke is the joke about 
the innocent or ignorant. Everyone is tickled 
at the Hamlet joke I referred to in my Log. 
The school inspector was dining with the local 
squire. 

" Funny thing happened in the village school 
to-day," he said. '' I was a Httle bit ratty, 
and I fired a question at a sleepy-looking boy 
at the bottom of the class. 

" Here, boy, who wrote Hamlet ? " 

The little chap got very flustered. 

'' P — ^please, sir, it wasna me ! " 

The squire laughed boisterousty. 

'' And I suppose the Httle devil had done 
if after all ! " he cried. 

We laugh at that story because we have 
all made mistakes owing to ignorance, and 
blushed for them a hundred times later. When 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 53 

we laugh at the squire, we are really laughing 
at ourselves ; we are getting rid of our pent-up 
self-shame. That's why a good laugh is a 
medicine ; it allows us to get rid of psychic 
poison, just as a good sweat rids us of somatic 
poison. CharHe ChapHn has possibly cured 
more people than all the psycho-analysts in 
the world. 

41 lit din :¥ ^ * 

Public speaking is a most difficult thing. 
It is difficult enough when you know your 
subject, and it is almost impossible if you 
don't. At a dinner someone asks you to 
get up and propose the health of the ladies. 
I tried proposing that toast once ; luckily 
most of the diners were under the table by 
that time. What can one say about the 
ladies ? 

When you have a definite subject to talk 
about, and when you know everything about 
it, even then public speaking is difficult. You 
stand up before a sea of faces. You see no 
one ; you dare not catch anyone's eye. The 
best plan is to fix your eye on the blurred 
face of the man at the back of the hall. You 
feel that the audience is vaguely hostile. 

At one time I used to go straight into my 
subject . .« . ''Ladies and gentlemen, the 
subject of evolution has occupied the minds 
of — " Then the audience began to rustle, 
and the women turned to look at the hats 
behind them. 



54 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

Nowada^^s I am more wary. I stand up 
and gaze over the sea of faces for a full minute. 
There is absolute silence. I put my hands 
into my trouser pockets and gaze at the ceihng, 
as if I were considering whether I should 
go on or give it up and go home. Even the 
boys at the back of the hall begin to look 
towards the platform. 

Then I look down and find that my tie 
is hanging out of my waistcoat, and I adjust 
it. A girl of ten giggles. 

" What can you expect for fivepence half- 
penn3^ ? " I ask, and the audience gasps. 

*' Why doesn't someone invent a long tie 
that won't come out at the ends 7 " I ask 
warily, and there is a laugh. I go on from 
ties to collars, and there is another laugh. 
After that I can speak on education for two 
hours, and everyone in the hall will listen 
with great attention. 

The first thing in public speaking is to 
get on good terms with your audience, and 
I claim that the best way to do this is to 
show them the human side of yourself. Some 
of your hearers are agin you ; they have 
come out to criticise you. You disarm them 
at once by treating yourself as a joke. Of 
course you must suit your tactics to your 
audience. The tie remark will put me on good 
terms with a rural audience, but it would fail 
in a lecture to teachers in the Albert Hall. 

An important thing to remember is that 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 55 

crowd humour is quite different from indi- 
vidual humour. A crowd will roar with de- 
light if the lecturer accidentally knocks over 
the drinking glass on the table, but no indi- 
vidual ever laughs when a similar accident 
happens in a private room. Read the reports 
of speeches in the House of Commons. You 
will read that lyloyd George, in a speech, says : 
" And now let us turn to Ireland (loud 
laughter)." But in cold print it isn't a very 
good joke. 

Quite a good way of commencing a lecture 
is to tell a short story .... about the chair- 
man if possible. But you must be careful. 
Keep oE the topic of the chairman's marital 
affairs ; he may have lodged a divorce petition 
the week before. 

On second thoughts I think it better not 
to mention the chairman at all. lyast winter 
the local mayor was presiding at a lecture 
I gave in an EngHsh town. After I had 
delivered the lecture, he got up. 

" I came to this meeting feeHng dead tired,'' 
he said, " but after Mr. Neill's lecture I feel 
as fresh as a daisy." 

I rose in alarm. 

" Ladies and gentlemen," I said hastily, 
" the mayor has been sitting behind me. Do 
tell me : has he been asleep ? " 

In the ante-room afterwards he assured 
me solemnly that he hadn't been asleep. 

On Friday night I began thus : "Mr. Chair- 



56 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

man, ladies and gentlemen, I am going to 
talk about Forgetting/' Then I put my hand 
in my inside coat pocket ; then I tried another 
pocket, and got very excited while I rummaged 
every pocket I had. 

'* I must apologise,'' I said, " but I have 
forgotten my notes." 

The audience laughed, and we became the 
best of friends. 



Forgetting is very often intentional. We 
forget what we do not want to remember. 
Brown writes to me saying that he is taking 
the wife and kids to the seaside, and would 
I please pay him the fiver I owe him ? I 
at once sit down and write : " My dear Brown, 
I enclose a cheque for five quid. Many thanks 
for the loan. Hope you all have a good time 
at the sea." 

Three days later Brown replies. 

" Thanks for your letter, old man, but 
you forgot to enclose the cheque." 

Why did I forget the cheque ? Because 
I did not want to pay up. Consciously I did 
want to pay, for I wrote out the cheque all 
right, but my unconscious did not want to 
pay, and it was my unconscious that made 
me slip the cheque under the blotter. 

lyast summer I was invited to spend the 
week-end with some people at Stanmore. I 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 57 

did not want to go ; a pre\nous week-end 
with them had been most boring. However, 
I reluctantly consented to go out on the 
Saturday morning. When Saturday morning 
came I was not very much surprised to find 
that I had forgotten to put out my boots 
to be cleaned the night before. 

" It looks as if I weren't keen on this trip/' 
I said to myself. 

I went down to Baker Street and got into 
the train. We stopped at many stations, 
and after an hour's journey I began to wonder 
what was wrong. I asked another man in 
the compartment when we were due at Stan- 
more, and he looked surprised. 

" Why,'* he said, '* you're on the wrong 
Une ; you ought to have changed at Harrow." 

I got out at the next station and found 
that I had an hour to wait for the return 
train to Harrow. As I sat on the platform 
I took from my pocket my host's letter. 

" Remember,'' it ran, " to change at Harrow," 
and the words were underHned. 

I arrived four hours late .... and spent 
a pleasant week-end. 

One night I was dining out in lyondon, 
and I told my host the new theory of for- 
getting. 

"That's all bunkum," he said. ''Why, 
there is a flower growing at the front door 
there, and I can never remember the name 
of it. I am fond of flowers and never bay^ 



58 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

any difficulty in remembering their names 
as a rule/' 

" What flower is it ? " I asked. 

He tried to recall it, and had to give it up. 

*' It's the joke of the family/' said his wife. 
'* He can never remember the name Begonia." 

" Begonia ! " cried my host, '* that's the 
name ! But surely you don't mean to tell 
me that I want to forget it ? Why should 
I?" 

" It may be associated with something un- 
pleasant in 3^our life/' I said. 

*' Nonsense ! " he laughed. " The name con- 
veys nothing to me." 

We began to talk about other things. Ten 
minutes later my host suddenly exclaimed: 
" I've got it 1 " 

" What ? " I asked. 

*' That Begonia business. Wlien I began 
business as a chartered accountant over twenty 
years ago, the first books I had to audit were 
the books of a company calHng itself The 
Begonia Furnishing Company. I glanced 
through the books and soon concluded that 
they were swindlers. I worried over that case 
for a week ; you see it was my first case, 
and I felt a little superstitious about it. How- 
ever, at the end of a week I sent the books 
back sa3^ing that I couldn't see my way to 
undertake the auditing. I've never given them 
a thought since." 

J explained the mechanisms to him. The 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 59 

whole idea of this Begonia Company was so 
painful to him that he repressed it, that is, 
drove it down into the unconscious. Twenty 
years later he was unconsciously afraid to 
recall the name of the flower, because the 
name might have brought back the painful 
memories of the questionable books. 

On Friday night during question time one 
man got up. 

" Why is it, then,'' he asked, '' that I cannot 
forget the painful time when my wife died ? *' 

I explained that a big thing like that cannot 
be forgotten, but pointed out that in a case 
like that the tendency is to forget little things 
in connection with the big pain. I told him 
of a case I had myself known. A lady of 
my acquaintance lived for a few years in 
Glasgow ; then she moved to Edinburgh, 
where she lived for almost thirty years. Now 
she lives in I^ondon. When she talks of her 
old home in Edinburgh she always says : 
" When we were in Glasgow.*' Invariably 
she makes this mistake. The reason is almost 
certainly this: just before she left Edinburgh 
she lost the one she loved most in life. She 
says : '* When we were in Glasgow '' because 
the word Edinburgh would at once bring 
back the painful memories connected with 
her loved one's death. 

When I was teaching in Hampstead one 
of my pupils, a boy of sixteen, came to m^ 
one day. 



6o A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

'* That's all rot, what you say about wanting 
to forget things/' he said. '' I went and 
left my walking-stick in a bus yesterday/' 

*' Were you tired of it ? " I asked. 

" Tired of it ? " he said indignantly. "Why, 
it was a beauty, a silver-topped cane, got 
it from mother on my birthday. That proves 
your theory is all wrong." 

" Tell me about yesterday," I said. 

** Well, I was going to a match at lyord's, 
and it looked rather dull, so mother told me 
I'd better take a gamp. I said it wasn't 
going to rain, and took my cane, but I had 
just got on the top of a bus when down came 
the rain in bucketfuls and I tell you I was 
wet to the skin." 

" So you did mean to leave your cane 
behind ? " I asked, with a smile. 

" But I tell you I didn't ! " 

" You did, all the same. You kicked your- 
self because you hadn't taken your mother's 
advice and brought a gamp. You deliberately 
left 3^our cane behind you because it had 
proved useless." 

I must add that I failed to convince him. 

Connected with forgetting are what Freud 
calls symptomatic acts. I leave my stick 
or gloves behind when I am calling at a 
house: I conclude that I want to go back 
there. I go to dinner at the Thomsons', 
and at their front door I absent-mindedly 
take out my latch-key. This may mean that 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 6i 

I feel at home there ; on the other hand, 
it may mean that I wish I were at home. 
It is dangerous to dogmatise about the un- 
conscious. 

I was sitting one night with Wilson, an 
old college friend of mine. We talked of old 
times, and I remarked that he had been very 
lucky in his lodgings during his college course. 

'* Yes,'' he said, *' 1 was in the same digs 
all the five years. She was a ripping land- 
lady was Mrs. — ^Mrs. — Good Lord ! I've for- 
gotten her name ! " 

He tried to recall the name, but had to 
give it up. Two hours later, as he rose to 
go, he exclaimed : *' I remember the name 
now ! Mrs. Watson I " 

" What are your associations to the name 
Watson ? " I asked. 

" Associations ? What do you mean ? ** 

" What's the first thing that comes into 
your head in connection with the name ? " 
I asked. 

He made an effort to concentrate his mind, 
then suddenly he laughed shortly. 

" Good Ivord ! " he cried, " that's my wife's 
name ! " 

I felt that I could not very well ask him 
anything further, but I suspected that Wilson 
and his wife were not getting on well together. 

* if: 4: 4: ♦ 4( 

Macdonald's self-government scheme has 
fizzled out. Yesterday his scholars besought 



62 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

him to return to the old way of authority. 

" They were fed up with looking after 
themselves," explained Mac to me. '* They 
were always trying each other for misde- 
meanours, and they got sick of it/' 

I tried to explain to Mac why his attempt 
had failed. Self-government always fails unless 
it is complete self-government. Mac was the 
director and guide ; it was he who decided 
the time-table ; it was he who rang the bell 
and decided the length of the intervals. The 
children had nothing to do but to keep them- 
selves in order, hence they came to spy on 
each other. All their energies were directed 
to penal measures. Their meeting degenerated 
into a police court. That was inevitable ; 
Mac, by laying down all the laws, prevented 
their using their creative energy on things 
and ideas. Naturally they put all the energy 
they had into the only thing open to them — 
the trial of offenders. In short, they were 
employing energy in destruction when they 
ought to have been employing it in construction. 
Mac seems indifferent now. *' The thing is 
unworkable, '* he says. 



Duncan came over to-night. I decided to 
let him do most of the talking, and he did 
it well. He has been doing a lot of Regional 
Geography, and I learned much from his 
conversation. As the evening wore on he 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 63 

became very affable, and he treated me with 
the greatest kindness. When Mac was seeing 
him out Duncan remarked to him : '' That 
chap Neill isn't such a bad fellow after all." 
Now that I have shown Duncan that I am 
his inferior in Geography he will listen to 
me with less irritation. 

After supper I went over to see Dauvit. 
His shop was crowded. Conversation was 
going slowly, and Dauvit seemed to welcome 
my entrance. 

'' Man, Dominie,'' he said, *' I am very 
glad to see ye, cos the smith here has been 
tellin' his usual lees aboot the ten pund troot 
that he nearly landed in the Kernet." 

" I doot ye dreamt it, smith," said the 
foreman from Hillend. " I ken for mysell 
that the biggest troot I ever catched were 
in my dreams." 

*' Dreams is just a curran blethers," said 
the smith in scorn. 

Dauvit looked at him thoughtfully. 

*' That's a very ignorant remark, smith," 
he said gravely. '' There's naebody kens what 
a dream is. Some o' thae spiritualist lads 
say that when ye are asleep yer spirit goes 
to the next plane, and that maks yer dreams." 

The smith laughed loudly. 

" Oh, Dauvit ! Why, man, I dreamed last 
nicht that I was sittin' we a great muckle pint 
o' beer in my hand. Do ye mean to tell me 
that there is beer in heaven ? " 



64 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

There was a laugh at Dauvit's expense, 
but the laugh turned against the smith when 
Dauvit remarked dryly : "I didna mention 
heaven ; I said the next plane, and onybody 
that kens you, smith, kens that the plane 
you're gaein* to is the doon plane/' 

'* Naturally, a muckle pint o' beer will 
be the exact thing ye need doon there," he 
added. 

" It's my opeenion," said old John Peters, 
" that dreams is just like a motor car withoot 
the driver. Or like a schule withoot the 
mester ; the bairns just run aboot whaur 
they like, nae control as ye micht say. Weel, 
that's jest what happens in dreams ; the 
mester is sleepin' and the bairns do all sorts 
o' mad things." 

" Aye, man, John," said Dauvit, who seemed 
to be struck with the idea, '* there's maybe 
something in that. Just as bairns when they 
get free do a' the things they're no meant 
to do, we do the same things in oor dreams. 
Goad, but I've done some awfu' things in 
my dreams ! " 

Here Jake Tosh the roadman began to 
cough, and Jake's cough always means that 
he is about to say something. 

'* You're just a lot o' haverin' craturs," 
he said with conviction. ''If ye had ony sense 
ye wud ken that the dream is just cheese 
and tripe for supper." 

Dauvit's eyes twinkled. 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT. 65 

" And does the cheese wander frae yer 
stammick up to yer held, Jake ? '' 

" I wudna go so far as that," said Jake 
seriously, '*but what I say is that a' the 
different parts o' the body work thegether. 
If the stammick has to work a nicht to digest 
the cheese, the heid has to keep workin' at 
the same rate, and that's why ye dream/' 

" Aye, man, Jake," vSaid Dauvit, " it's a 
bonny theory, but wud ye jest tell me exactly 
w^hat work yer toes and fingers and hair are 
doin' a' nicht to keep upsides wi' yer stam- 
mick ? " 

Jake dismissed the question with an airy 
wave of his hand. 

'' Onybody kens that," he said ; '' they 
grow. Yer hair and yer nails grow at nichts, 
and that's why ye need a shave in the 
mornin' ! " 

" What if you don't dream at all, Jake ? " 
I asked. 

'' Ye're needin' some grub," said Jake shortly. 

On thinking it over I feel that Jake's theory 
throws some light on Jung's theory of the 
libido. 



IV. 



THIS morning I had a letter from a 
friend in lyondon asking when I am 
going to set up my " Crank School '* 
in London. I began to tliink about the word 
Crank. What is a Crank ? Usually the name 
is applied to people who wear long hair, eat 
vegetarian diet, wear sandals .... or 
something in that line. A Crank therefore is 
someone who differs from the crowd, and I 
am led to conclude that the Crank not only 
differs from the crowd but is usually ahead 
of the crowd. 

According to Sir Martin Conway the crowd 
has no head ; it can onty feel. Hence it 
comes that the main feature of a crowd is 
its emotion. When we study the street crowd, 
the mob, this fact is evident ; but can we 
say the same of other crowds . . . the Public 
School crowd, the Church, the Miners, the 
Doctors ? I think so. The anger that Alec 
Waugh's book, The Loom of Youth, aroused 
in the public schools was not a thought-out 
anger ; it came from the public school emo- 
tion. So with vivisection ; the doctors* rage 
at the anti-vivisectionists is not an intellectual 
rage ; it is simpty a professional emotion. 
Just before I left I^ondon I happened one 

66 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 67 

night to be in a company of men who were 
arguing about Re-incarnation. I had no special 
views on the subject, but I soon found myself 
supporting the crowd that was sceptical about 
Re-incarnation. The reason was that the leader 
of the anti-reincarnation crowd happened to 
be a man called Neill. It is highly probable 
that if two rag-and-bone men got into a 
scrap in a public house they would support 
each other simply out of a professional crowd 
emotion. 

That the crowd has no head is evident 
when we read the popular papers or see the 
popular films. The most successful papers 
are those that touch the passions of the mob. 
I proved this one week last spring. Judges 
were beginning to introduce the '' cat " for 
criminals, as a means to stem the crime wave. 
I sat down and wrote an article on the 
subject, pointing out that this was a going 
back to the days of barbarism when lunatics 
were whipped behind the cart's tail. I made 
a strong plea for the psychological treatment 
of the criminal, basing my plea on the fact 
that crime is the result of unconscious workings 
of the mind, and stating that instead of sending 
a poor man to penal servitude we ought to 
analyse his mind and cure him of his anti-social 
tendencies. 

I thought it a jolly good article, and when 
a prominent Sunday paper returned the manu- 
script to me I was surprised. My surprise 



68 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

left me on the following Sunday when the 
same paper blared forth an article by Horatio 
Bottomley. His title was : '' Wanted — the 
Cat I " 

My article was more thoughtful, more humane, 
more scientific. Why, then, was it suppressed ? 
The answer is simple : it did not fit in with 
the passions of the crowd. It becomes clear 
why our best public men — editors, cabinet 
ministers, publicists are not great thinkers. 
They must keep in touch with the crowd ; 
they must express the emotions of the 
crowd. 

The attitude of the crowd to the anti-crowd 
person, the Crank, is never one of contemptuous 
indifference. It is always distinctly hostile. 
If I travel by tube from Hampstead to Picca- 
dilly without a hat the other travellers stare 
at me with mild hostihty. Why ? Conway, 
in The Crowd in Peace and War, an excellent 
book, says that this hostihty comes from 
fear. A crowd is always afraid of another 
crowd, because the only force that can destroy 
a crowd is a rival crowd. Every individual 
who differs from the herd is suspect because 
he is perhaps the nucleus of a rival crowd. 
That is why the world always crucifies its 
Christs. 

The Crank School, then, is a school where 
anti-crowd people send their children. It is 
the school par excellence of the Intelligentsia. 
The tendency of every Crank School is to 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 69 

exaggerate the difference between the crank 
and the crowd ; hence its adoption of an 
ideal and its concomitant crazes. I cannot 
for the Hfe of me see why ideals are asso- 
ciated with vegetarianism, long hair, Grecian 
dress, and sandals, just as I cannot see why 
art should attach itself to huge bow-ties, 
long hair, and foot-long cigarette holders. 

The Crank School holds up an ideal. It 
plasters its walls with busts of Walt Whitman 
and Blake ; it hangs bad reproductions of 
Botticelh round the walls ; it sings songs to 
Freedom ; it rhapsodises about Beethoven and 
Bach. The children of the Crank Schools 
are, I rejoice to say, not cranks. They leave 
the boredom of Bach and seek the jazz record 
on the gramophone ; they ignore the pictures 
of Whitman and Blake and study The Picture 
Show or Funny Bits. Many of them think 
more highly of CharHe ChapHn than of WiUiam 
Shakespeare. 

I say again that I rejoice in this ; it serves 
the Crank School people jolly well right. I 
cannot see by what right educators force 
what they consider good taste down the 
children's throats. That is a return to the 
old way of authority, of treating the child's 
mind as a blank slate. If the Crank Schools 
are to improve, they must drop their high 
moral purpose tone and come down to earth. 
They must realise that CharHe Chaplin and 
John Bull have their place in education just 



70 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

as Shakespeare and Beethoven have their 
place. We do not want to turn out cranks 
who will form a new superior crowd ; we 
want to turn out men and women who will 
readily join the conventional crowd and help 
it to reach better ideals. 

This question of good taste is a sore one 
with me. I think it fatal to impose good 
taste on any child ; the child must form his 
own taste. I know that it is possible to culti- 
vate good taste and to become a very superior 
cultivated person, but I know that the human, 
erring, vulgar, music-hall, Charlie Chaplin 
part of such a person's make-up is not 
annihilated ; it is merely repressed into the 
unconscious. 

I have a theory that each of us has a 
definite amount of human nature, some of 
it high, some of it low, or, to phrase it dif- 
ferently, some of it animal, some of it spiritual. 
We can repress one part, and then we become 
either a saint or a sinner ; the better way 
is to be both saint and sinner, to look life 
straight in the face, condemning no one, 
judging no one. 

^ H: 4: 4: 3|e ♦ 

Macdonald was re-reading A Dominie Dis- 
7nissed to-night, and he looked up and said : 
" Look here, youVe got an awful lot of 
swear- words in this book ! *' 

'' That/' I said, '' has a cause, Mac. They 
aren't really swear-words ; the world has 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 71 

grown out of being shocked at a ' damn/ 
but I am willing to admit that there are more 
damns and hells than is usual. They are 
symptomatic ; they date back to my early 
days when swearing was a crime punishable 
with the strap. The}^ are simpl}^ symbols 
of my freedom. Most bad language is from 
a like cause. When you foozle on the first 
tee there is no earthy reason wh}^ you should 
say ' Hell ' rather than ' Onions ' ! But if 
onions had been taboo when you were a child 
you would find yourself using the word as 
a sw^ear. The curse word is the link that 
joins 3^our foozle with the nursery ; whenever 
you curse you regress, that is, you go back 
to the infantile.'' 

" But/' said Mac, " you don't mean to say 
that if swearing were permitted to children 
that they wouldn't curse when they were 
grown up ? " 

" I don't think they would," I said. " Nor 
would there be any unprintable stories if we 
had a frank sex education. It's a sad fact, 
Mac, but nine-tenths of humour is due to 
early suppression and repression." 

'* Seems to me," said Mac with a laugh, 
" that if everybody were psycho-analysed, the 
world would be a pretty dull place." 

^ H* *{* *f» ^ 5jJ 

A few days ago I found a pot of light paint 
in Mac's workshop, and, impelled by heaven 
only knows what unconscious process, I painted 



72 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

my bicycle blue. This morning, the paint 
being dry, I rode forth into an unsympathetic 
world. Women came to their doors to stare 
at my machine, and as they stared they broke 
into laughter. When I reached the village 
of Cordyke the school was coming out, and 
I was greeted with a howl of derision. I 
thought it a good instance of crowd psychology ; 
I was different from the crowd, and I evoked 
laughter and derision. 

After cycling a few miles, I came to an 
old man breaking stones at the bottom of 
a hill. On my approaching he threw down 
his hammer and turned to stare at my cycle. 
I dismounted. 

" Almichty me ! ** he said with surprise. 
'* That's a michty colour ! " 

*' It's unusual," I said, as I Ht a cigarette. 

He fumbled for his clay pipe. 

*' IVe seen black anes, and I wance saw 
a silver-plated ane, but I never heard tell 
o' a blue bike afore,*' he said. ** Did you 
pent it ? " 

I acknowledged that it was my very own 
handiwork. 

'' But," he said in puzzled tones, " what 
was yer idea ? " and he stared at it again. 
" A michty coloiu" that ! " 

I threw my bike down on the grass and 
sat down on the cairn. 

*' Between you and me," I said mysteriously, 
"I had to paint it blue." 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT ^l 

He raised his eyebrows. 

'' Yea, man ! " 

** Government orders/' I said carelessly, and 
began to throw stones at a tree trunk at the 
other side of the road. 

'' Government orders ? " He looked very 
much surprised. 

** Yes," I said airil3^ *' You see, it's like 
this. The Coalition Government isn't very 
firmly placed these days, and, well, I'm an 
agent for it. Of course, you know that it 
is really a Tory government, and my bike, 
as it were, invites the electorate to vote True 
Blue." 

*' Yea, man ! I thocht that you was 
maybe ane o' thae temperance lads frae 
Americky." 

'' Ah ! " I said solemnly, '' that reminds 
me ; Pussyfoot tried to induce me to make 
my tour a sort of joint thing. He suggested 
that I might carry on my Tory work, and 
at the same time take part in the blue ribbon 
campaign. Of course I refused." 

'' Of coorse," he nodded. 

*' Officially I am doing Coalition work," 
I continued conversationally, *' but I have 
motives of my own." 

" You don't say ! " 

*' Oh, yes. I am a great admirer of Lord 
Fisher and the Blue Water school, sometimes 
spoken of as the Blue Funk school. Again, 
I find that the Great War has left many people 



74 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

in the blues, and by means of homeopathy 
I cure 'em ; I mean to say that they come 
to their doors and laugh at my blue bike. 
My blue dispels their blues/' 

The old man did not seem to follow this, 

"Of course/'. I went on, "the Bluebells 
of Scotland have something to do with my 
selection of the colour." 

" A verra nice sang," he commented. 

" An excellent song ! Then there is the 
well-known phrase * Once in a Blue Moon,' 
and innumerable songs about the pale moon- 
light. Also I once knew a man who had 
the blue devils." 

I tried to think of other phases of blueness, 
but my stock was almost exhausted. 

" Of course," I added, " I am not forgetting 
the other blues, the Oxford blues, Reckitt's 
Blue, Blue Coupons, and — and — I'm afraid 
I can't think of any other blues just at the 
moment." 

The old man drew the back of his hand 
over his mouth. 

" There's the ' Blue Bonnets ' up at the 
tap o' the brae," he suggested thirstily. 

" Good idea ! " I cried, " come on ! " and 
together we climbed the brae. 



A friend of mine in lyondon has written 
me asking if I will writ - an article on Co- 
education for an educational journal, in which 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 75 

she is interested. I replied : *' I can't see 
where the problem comes in ; to a Scot co- 
education is not a thing that has to be sup- 
ported by argument ; he accepts it as he 
accepts the law of gravitation." 

I wonder why English people are so afraid 
of co-education To this day schools like 
Bedales, King Alfred's, Harpenden, and Arun- 
dale are reckoned as crank schools. The great 
middle-class of England believes in segre- 
gation. Even Dr. Ernest Jones, the most 
prominent Freudian psycho-analyst in England, 
appears to be afraid of it. 

I can only conjecture that Jones agrees 
with the middle and upper classes in asso- 
ciating sex with sin. I have never tried to 
think out my reasons for believing in co- 
education ; possibly the true reason is that 
having grown up in a co-education atmo- 
sphere, co-education has become a part of 
me just as my Scots accent has. In other 
words, I may have a co-education complex. 
If that is so, my arguments will be mere 
rationalisations, but I give them for what 
they are worth. 

We are all born with a strong sex instinct, 
and this instinct must find expression in 
some way. We know that the sex energy 
can be sublimated, that is, raised to a higher 
power. For instance, the creative sex urge 
may be directed to the making of a book- 
case, or the making of a century at cricket. 



76 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

But I know of no evidence to prove that 
all the instinct can be sublimated. An adoles- 
cent may spend his days at craftwork and 
games, but he will have erotic dreams at 
nights. All the drawing and painting in the 
world will not prevent his having emotion 
when he looks at the face of a pretty girl. 

In our segregation schools boys and girls see 
nothing of each other. The unsublimated sex 
instinct finds expression in homosexuality, that 
is the emotion that should go to the opposite 
sex is fixed on a person of the same sex. I 
admit that we are all more or less homo- 
sexual ; otherwise there could be no friend- 
ship between man and man, or woman and 
woman. In our boarding schools the sex 
instinct often takes the road of auto-eroticism. 

In a co-education school the sex impulse 
is directed to one of the opposite sex. This 
attachment is nearly always a romantic ideal 
attachment. I have never known a case that 
went the length of kissing ; among little 
children at a rural school, yes ; at the age 
of seven I kissed my first sweetheart ; but 
among adolescents I find that neither the 
boy nor the girl has the courage to kiss. Theirs 
is a sublimated courtship ; they never use 
the word I^ove ; they talk about '' liking 
So-and-so.'' 

That at many co-education schools this 
romantic attachment is more or less an under- 
ground affair is due to the moral attitude 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT ^7 

of teachers. They pride themselves on the 
beautiful sexless attachments of their pupils ; 
they give moral lectures on the subject of 
kissing, and naturally every pupil in school 
at once becomes painfully self-conscious on 
the subject. The truth is that many co- 
educationists do not in their hearts believe 
in the system ; they still see sin in sex. 

To be a thorough success the co-education 
school must include sex education in its 
curriculum. The children of the most ad- 
vanced parents seldom get it at home, and 
they come to school with the old attitude 
to sex. Sex education does not mean telling 
children where babies come from ; it should 
dwell mostly on the psychological side of 
the question. The child ought to learn the 
truth about its sex instinct. Most important 
of all, the child who has indulged in autc- 
eroticism ought to be helped to get rid of his 
or her sense of guilt. This sense of guilt is 
the primary evil of self -abuse ; abolish it, 
and the child is on the way to a self-cure. 

How many children can go to their teacher 
and make confession of sex troubles ? Very 
few. It is the teachers' fault ; they set them- 
selves up as morahsts, and a moralist is a 
positive danger to any child. 

Not long ago I was addressing a meeting 
of teachers in south lyondon. At question 
time a woman challenged me. 

'' You have condemned moralists/' she said ; 



7^ A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

" do you mean to say that you would never 
teach a child the difference between right 
and wrong ? '' 

" Never/' I answered, "for I do not know 
what is right and what is wrong/' 

'' Then I think you ought not to be a teacher/' 
she said. 

" I know what is right for me, and wrong 
for me," I went on to explain, *' but I do 
not know what is right and wrong for you. 
Nor do I presume to know what is right or 
wrong for a child." 

I was pleasingly surprised to find that 
the meeting roared approval of my reply. 



Macdonald had to attend a funeral to-day, 
and he asked me if I would take his classes 
for an hour. I gladly agreed. 

*' Give them a lesson on psychology," he 
said ; ''it will maybe inprove their behaviour." 

I went over to the school at two o'clock, 
and Mac introduced me, although I had already 
made friends with most of the children in 
the playground and the fields. Mac then 
went away and I sat down at his desk. 

" We'll have a talk," I said, " just a little 
friendly talk between you and me. I want 
to hear your opinions on some things." 

They looked at me with interest. 

'' Why/' I said, " why do you sit quiet in 
school ? " 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 79 

Andrew Smith put up his hand. 
'' Please, sir, 'cause if we don't the mester 
gies us the strap/' 

'' A very sound reason, too," I commented, 
*' And now I want to ask you why you some- 
times want to throw papers or slate-pencils 
about the room." 

'' Please, sir, we never do that," said little 
Jeannie Simpson. 

" The mester v/ud punish us," said another 
girl. 

'' But," I cried, '' surely one of you has 
thrown things about the room ? " 

Tom Murray, the bad boy of the school 
(according to Mac), put up his hand. 

" Please, sir, I did it once, but the mester 
licked me." 

" Why did you do it, Tom ? " 
Tom thought hard. 

** I didna like the lesson," he said simply. 
I then went on further. 
*' Now I want you all to think this out : 
was Tom being selfish when he threv/ paper, 
or was he unselfish ? " 

Everyone, Tom included, judged that the 
paper-throwing was a selfish act, 

" I don't agree," I said. ** Tom was trying 
to do a service to the others ; you were all 
bored by a lesson, and Tom stepped in and 
took your attention. Unfortunately he also 
attracted the attention of Mr. Macdonald, 
but that has nothing to do with Tom's reason 



8o A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

for doing it. Tom was the most unselfish 
of the lot of you ; he showed more good than 
any of you/' 

'' The mester didna think that ! " said Tom, 
with a grin. 

Peter Wallace carefully rolled a paper pellet 
and threw it at Tom. 

" Now/' I said with a smile, " let's think 
this out ; why did Peter throw that pellet 
just now ? " 

*' Because the class is bored," said a little 
girl, and there was a good laugh at my 
expense. 

*' Righto ! " I laughed, " shall we do some- 
thing else ? " but the class shouted " No 1 " 
and I proceeded. 

*' Peter, do tell us why you threw that 
pellet." 

'' For fun," said Peter, blushing and smiling. 

'* He did it so's the class wud look at him," 
said Tom Murray, and Peter hid his diminished 
head. 

'' A wise answer, Tom/' I said ; ''but we 
are all like that ; we all like to be looked at. 
Who is the best at arithmetic ? " 

"Willie Broon," said the class, and Willie 
Broon cocked his head proudly. 

'' And who is the best fighter ? " 

" Tom Murray," answered the boys, and 
one little chap added : '' Tom cud fecht Willie 
Broon wi' one hand." 

Tom tried to look modest. 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 8i 

I went round the class and with one ex- 
ception every child had at least one branch 
of life in which he or she found a sense of 
superiority. The exception was Geordie Wylie, 
a small lad of thirteen with a white face and 
a starved appearance. The class were unani- 
mous in declaring that Geordie had no talent. 

'* He canna even spit far enough/' said 
one boy. 

Geordie's embarrassment made me change 
the subject quickly, but I made up my mind 
to have a talk with him later. 

Some of the reasons for individual pride 
were strange. Jake Tosh's feeling of superiority 
lay in the circumstance that his father had 
laid out a gamekeeper while poaching. Jock 
Wilson had once found a shilling ; another 
boy had seen " fower swine stickit a' in wan 
day ; " another could smoke a pipe of Bogie 
Roll without sickening (but I had to promise 
not to tell the Mester). The girls seemed 
to find their superiority mostly in lessons, 
although a few were proud of their needle- 
work. 

I then went on to ask them what their 
highest ambition in life was. The boys showed 
less imagination than the girls. vSix of them 
wanted to be ploughmen like their fathers. 
To a townsman this might appear to be a 
very modest ambition, but to a boy it means 
power and position ; to drive a pair of horses 
tandem fashion as they do on the East Coast, 



82 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

with the tracer prancing on the braes ; that 
is what being a ploughman means to a village 
lad. One boy wanted to be an engineer, 
another a clerk {" 'cos he doesna need to tak' 
aff his jaicket to work ! "), another a soldier. 

" Not a single teacher ! '' I said. 

** We're no clever enough," said Tom Murray. 

I turned to the girls. 

*' Now, let's see what ambition you have," 
I said hopefully. The result was good ; three 
teachers, two nurses, one typist, one lady 
doctor, one .... lady. This was Maggie 
Clark. She just wanted to be like one of 
thae ladies in the picters with a motor car. 

•• And husband ? " I asked. 

** No, I dinna want a man, but I wud like 
a lot of bairns," she said, and there was a 
snigger from the boys who had got their sex 
education from the ploughmen at the Brig 
of evenings. 

Another girl remarked that Maggie's ambi- 
tion was a selfish one. 

** But are you not all selfish ? " I asked. 

The class indignantly denied it. 

** Right," I said, '* what do you say to a 
composition exercise ? " 

They obediently got out their composition 
books, but I told them that my exercise was 
an easy one. I tore up a few pages into slips 
and distributed them. 

*' Now," I said, ** suppose I give you five 
pounds to do what you like with. Write 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 83 

down what you would do with it, fold the 
paper, and hand it in to me/' 

They eagerly agreed, and at the end of 
five minutes I had a hatful of slips. I then 
drew a line down the centre of the black- 
board. On one side I wrote the word Selfish ; 
on the other Unselfish. The class groaned 
and laughed. 

" Now," I said cheerfully, " this will prove 
whether the class is unselfish or not," and 
I unfolded the first slip. 

" But you'll say we arc selfish ! " said a 
boy. 

*' I have nothing to do with it," I said ; 
" you are to decide by vote. First person 
.... * I would buy a bicycle ' : selfish or 
unselfish ? " 

** Selfish ! " roared the class, and I put 
a mark in the first column. 

** Next paper .... * Scooter, knife, and 
the rest on ice-cream.' " 

'* Selfish ! " and I put down another mark. 

** Next : .... * Buy a pair of boots ' 
. . . . selfish or unselfish ? " 

The class had to stop and think here. 

'* Selfish ! " said a few. 

"Unselfish," said others, '"cos he wud be 
helpin' his mother." 

** Then well vote on it," I said, and by a 
najority of two the act was declared to be 
mselfish. 

We then had a run of knives, tops, candy, 



84 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

cycles, and no vote was necessaiy. Then came 
a puzzler. 

" I would send eveiy penny to the starving 
babies of Germany/' 

* 'Unselfish ! " cried the class in one voice. 
I was just about to put the mark in the un- 
selfish column when a boy said : *' That's 
selfish, cos she'd feel proud of being so — so 
unselfish." 

'' How do you know it is a she ? " I asked. 

** 'Cause I ken it's Jean Wilson," he answered 
promptly ; ** she has took a reid face." 

There followed a breezy debate on Jean's act. 

'* It is selfish," said Mary, " because when 
you do a kind action you feel pleased with your- 
self, and it was selfish because if it hadna 
pleased her she wud never ha' done it." 

I asked for a vote and to my astonishment 
the act was declared selfish by a majority of 
three. I suspect that conventional Hun Hatred 
had something to do with the voting. 

The voting over I totted up the marks. 

'* You have judged yourselves," I said, " and 
according to 3^our own showing you as a 
class are ^y per cent, selfish and 13 per cent, 
unselfish." 

This essay in composition was not original ; 
I got the idea from Homer Lane, who claimed 
that it was the best introduction to school 
psychology. *' It is the best way to make 
children think of their own behaviour,"^ he 
said, and my experiment has shown this. 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 85 

When Mac came back I said to him ; *' YouVe 
got a fine lot of bairns, Mac/' 

'* Had you any difficulty ? " he asked. 

" What do you mean ? '' 

'* Oh, I half thought they would try to pull 
your leg, especially a boy like Tom Murray 
He is a most difficult chap, you know/' 

'* Tom's a saint," I said ; *' every child is a 
saint if yoii treat him as an equal. No, I had 
no difficulty, but I want you to send over 
Geordie Wylie to me this afternoon. There 
is something wrong wdth that boy ; he has 
no ambition and he has one of the w^orst 
inferiority complexes I have ever struck. I 
want to have a quiet talk with him." 

Mac promised, and at three o'clock Geordie 
came over to the schoolhouse. I took him into 
the parlour, and he sat nervously on the edge 
of a chair. 

*' Tell me about yourself, Geordie," I said, 
but he did not answer. 

" Do vou keep rabbits ? " 

*' Aye." 

" What kind ? " 

** Twa Himalayas and a half Patty." 

" Keep doos ? " 

" No." 

It was like drawing blood from a milestone. 

" What do 3^ou do when vou go home at 
nights ? " 

It was a long difficult task to get anything 
out of him. The only fact of value I got was 



86 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

that he was a great reader of Wild West stories. 
I asked him to come to me again, and he said he 
would. 

To-night I asked Mac about him. 

'' He's a dreamer, ''said Mac, '* and he's lazy. 
I am alwa^^s strapping him for inattention. 
He's not a manly boy, never plays games, 
always stands in a corner of the playground." 

*' Does he ever fight ? " I asked. 

*' He's a great coward, but there's one queer 
thing about him ; when any boy challenges 
him to fight he goes white about the gills 
but he always fights and gets licked." 

'' Mac," I said, '' will you do me a favour ? 
Don't whack him again ; it is the worst treat- 
ment you can give him. He is a poor wee 
chap, and he is badly in need of real help." 

" All right," said the kindly Mac, " I'll try 
not to touch him, but he irritates me many a 
time." 



I had Geordie for an hour this morning. 
He was taciturn at first, but later he talked 
freely. He is very much afraid of his father, 
and he weeps when his father scolds him. 
This makes the father angrier and he calls 
Geordie a lassie, a greetin' lassie. This jeer 
wounds the boy deeply. He is afraid in the 
dark. He told me that he was puzzled about 
one thing ; when he goes for his milk at night 
he is never afraid on the outward journey, 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT Sy 

but when he leaves the dairy to come home 
he is always in terror. I asked him what 
he was afraid of and he told me that he always 
imagined that there was a man in a cheese- 
cutter cap waiting to murder him. 

*' What is a cheese-cutter ? " I asked. 

'* It is a bonnet with a big snout, something 
like a railway porter's. My father's a porter 
and he has ane." 

Evidently the man he is afraid of is his father. 
This may account for his lack of fear when he 
is walking from his home to the dairy. Then 
he is leaving his father ; when he starts to return 
he is going back to his father and is afraid. 

I asked him about his fights with other boys. 
He always feared a fight but he went through 
with it so that the other boys should not call 
him a coward. Naturally he always lost the 
battle ; he fought with a divided mind ; while 
his less imaginative opponent thought only 
of hitting and winning, Geordie was picturing 
the end of the fight. 

I asked him if he had a sweetheart, and he 
blushed deeply. He told me that he often 
took fancies for girls, but they would not 
have him. Frank Murray always cut him 
out ; Frank was a big hefty lad and the girls 
like the beefy manly boy. 

He does much day-dreaming, phantasying 
it is called in analysis. His dreams always 
take the form of conquests ; in his day-dream he 
is the best fighter in the school, the best scholar. 



88 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

the most loved of the girls. His night dreams 
are often terrifying, and he has more than 
once dreamt that his father and Macdonald 
were dead. He finds compensation for his 
weaknesses in his day-dreams and his reading. 
He likes tales of heroes who always kill the vil- 
lians and carry off the heroines. 

It is difficult to know what to do in a case 
like this. The best way would be to change 
the boy's environment, but that is out of the 
question. Even then the early fears would 
go with him ; he would transfer his father- 
complex to another man. 

I tried to explain to Mac the condition of 
Geordie. The boy is all bottled up ; his energy 
should be going into play and work, but in- 
stead it is regressing, going back to early ways 
of adaptation to environment. 

*' But what can I do with him ? '' asked Mac. 

'* Give him your love,'' I said. '' He fears 
you now, and your attitude to him makes him 
worse. You must never punish him again, 
Mac." 

'' That's all very well," said Mac ruefully, 
*' but what am I to do ? Suppose Tom Mur- 
ray and he talk during a lesson, am I to whack 
Tom and allow Geordie to get off ? " 

'* Chuck punishment altogether, "I said. ''You 
don't need it ; it is always the resort of a weak 
teacher." 

" I couldn't do without it," he said. 

" All right then," I said wearily, " but I 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 89 

want you to realise that your punishments 
are making Geordie a cripple for life/' 



I went down and had a talk with Geordie's 
father. He was not very pleasant about it ; 
indeed he was almost unpleasant. 

'* There's nothing wrong wi' the laddie/* 
he said aggressively. '' He's a wee bit lassie- 
like and he has no pluck/' 

Here Geordie entered the kitchen, and his 
father turned on him harshly. 

" Started to yer lessons yet ? " he demanded. 
Geordie muttered something about having 
had to feed his rabbits. 

" I'll rabbit ye ! Get yer books oot this 
minute ! " and Geordie crept to a corner and 
rummaged among some old clothes for his 
school-bag. 

I tried to be as amiable as I could, and 
avoided controversy. I soon saw that father 
and mother were not pulling well together, 
and I suspected that the father's harshness 
to Geordie was often a weapon to wound the 
fond mother. ^ I saw that nothing I could say 
would do any good, and I took my departure, 
lyater I went to see Dauvit, and found him 
alone. I asked him to tell me about the Wylies. 
" Tam Wylie is wan o' the stupidest men in 
a ten mile radius," said Dauvit. '' But he's 
no stupid whaur money is concerned ; they 
tell me that he drinks aboot half his weeks' 



90 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

wages, and his puir wife has to suffer. That 
laddie o* theirs, he was born afore the marriage, 
and they tell me that Tarn wud never ha' 
married her if he hadna been fell drunk the 
nicht he put in the banns/' 

This case of poor Geordie shows what a com- 
plexity there is in human affairs. His father 
has a mental conflict, and he drinks so that 
he may get away from reality. The father's 
drinking and the son's reading of romances 
are fundamentally the same thing ; each is 
trying to get away from a reaUty he dare not 
face. No treatment of Geordie could be satis- 
factory unless at the same time the parents 
were being treated. 



i 



V. 

CARROTTY BROON, one of my old 
scholars, came to Dauvit's shop to-night, 
and he talked about his pigeons 

his doos he calls them. He keeps a pigeon 
loft of homers, and he spends a considerable 
amount in training them. 

** Some fowk think,'' he said, ** that a homer 
will flee hame if ye throw it up five hunder 
miles awa." 

" I've read of flights of seven hundred miles," 
I said. 

Carrotty Broon chuckled. 

'' I mind o' a homer I had," he went on. 
" He was a beauty, a reid chequer. His 
father had flown frae I^ondon to Glasgow, 
and his mither was a flier too. Weel, I took 
him doon to Monibreck on my bike, and let 
him oft'. I never saw him again ; five mile, 
and he cudna find his way hame ! " 

*' He must ha' been shot," said Dauvit, 
" for thae homers find their way hame by 
instinct." 

'' Na, na, Dauvit," said Broon, " they flee 
by sicht. Wlien ye train a homer ye tak it a 
mxile the first day, syne three miles, syne 
maybe seven, ten, twenty, fifty, and so on. 
Stud the purest br^d homer fower mile without 

n 



92 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

trainin' and yell never see him again." 

Carrotty Broon told us many interesting 
things about doos and their ways. We listened 
to him because he was an authority and 
we knew littk about the subject. 

'' The only thing I ken aboot doos/' said 
Dauvit with a laugh, " is that when I was a 
laddie auld Peter Smith and John Wylie 
keepit homers and they were aye trying com- 
peetitions in fleein'. John was gaein' to Lon- 
don for his summer holiday, and so him and 
Peter made a bargain that they wud flee twa 
homers from lyondon. Weel, John he got to 
London, and he thocht to himsell that seein' 
they had a bet o' twa pund on the race, he 
wud mak sure o* winning and so what does 
he do but tak a pair o' shears and cut the wing 
o' Peter's doo. 

" When John cam hame after a fortnight's 
trip he met auld Peter at the station. 
" ' Weel, Peter,' says he, ' wha won the race?' 
'''You,' said Peter; 'your doo cam hame 
the next day, but mine only got hame this 
mornin'. And it has corns on its feet like 
tatties.' " 



To-day was Macdonald's Inspection Day, 
and at dinner time he brought over Mr. J. F. 
Mackenzie, H.M.I. S., a middle-aged man and 
Mr. ly. P. Smart, assistant I.S., a cheery youth 
fresh from Oxford. When inspectors dine with 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 93 

the village dominie they never mention the 
word education. These two talked a lot, and 
all their conversation was about mountain- 
climbing in Switzerland. They swopped long 
prosy yarns about dull incidents, and I was very 
much bored. So was Mac, but he pretended 
to be interested, but then he was to see them 

again, and I wasn't at least I prayed 

that I might not. After a time I began to 
feel that I was being left out of the conversa- 
tion, and I waited until Mackenzie paused for 
a breath. 

*' Switzerland is very beautiful," I remarked, 
** but you should see the Andes." 

Mackenzie looked at me coldly. 

" I haven't been to South America," he 
said. 

*' Same here," said I cheerfully, '' but I 
remember seeing pictures of them in the 
geography book at school." 

Mackenzie looked at me more coldly than 
before. I don't think he liked me, and when 
the younger man chuckled Mackenzie glared 
at him. Smart had a sense of humour. 

'* I'm afraid we have been boring you," 
he said to me with a smile. 

''I'd rather listen to you two talking educa- 
tion," I confessed. 

Mackenzie w^aved the suggestion away. 

" I leave education behind when I walk 
out of the school," he said in grand manner. 
" Most excellent rhubarb, Mrs. Macdonald. 



94 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

Home grown? '' And then we had ten minutes 
of garden products versus shop greens. I 
admit that this inspector had a genius for small 
talk. We dismissed greens and I led the 
conversation to hens and ducks. Mackenzie 
did not know much about them, and he con- 
firmed my opinion of his genius for small talk 
by saying : '' Buif Orpingtons ! They are 
named after Orpington in Kent. I remem- 
ber staying a night there before I went to 

Switzerland '' and the dirty dog took 

the conversation back to his mountain 
climbing. 

I made a gesture to the younger man and got 
him out into the garden. 

*' Why does he waste precious time talking 
about cabbages and dreary Swiss inns ? " I 
asked. 

Smart laughed shortly. 

'' You know how rich folk talk at table 
when the servants are present ? " 

I nodded. 

" Well, that's the Chief's attitude to teachers ; 
he never says anything of an}^ importance 
whatever.'' 

'' But why ? " 

'' He is of the old school. He has been in- 
specting schools for forty years. In the olden 
days an inspector was a sort of Almighty ; 
teachers quaked before him because with a 
stroke of his pen he could reduce their money 
grant. To this day the old man treats teachers 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 95 

as a king treats his subjects — with kindness 
but with distance/' 

'* Has he any views on education ? " 1 asked. 

Smart shook his head. 

" None, but he has heaps of views on in- 
struction and discipHne. By the way, he thinks 
that Macdonald's discipHne is very good." 

" And you ? " 

" I think it rotten," he said ruefully, '' but 
what can I do ? A junior inspector is a 
nobody ; if he has any views of his own he has 
to pocket them. I would chuck out all this 
discipHne rot and go in for the Montessori 
stunt. Take my tip and never accept an 
inspectorship." 

'* I won't," I said hastily. 

I Hked Smart, and I wish we had more of 
his stamp in the inspectorate. 

When we returned to the dining-room Mac- 
kenzie looked at me with interest. 

" I didn't know that you were the Dominie's 
Log man till Mr. Macdonald told me two 
minutes ago," he said. " 1 am delighted to 
meet you. I enjoyed your book very much 
indeed. Very amusing." 

He was quite affable now. Writing a book 
gives a man a certain standing. I fancy 
it is the dignity of print that does it, and we 
all have the print superstition. I find myself 
accepting statements in books, whereas if some- 
one said the same things to me over a dinner- 
table I should refute them with scorn. '* If 



96 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

it is in John Bull it is so ! " Mr. Bottomley 
is a sound psychologist. 

When they were departing I said to Smart : 
** Yes, he's very amiable and all that, but I 
am jolly glad I had Frank Michie and not him 
as my chief inspector when I wrote my Log.*' 

Smart laughed. 

" My dear chap, Mackenzie would have let 
you run your school in your own way." 

" But/' I cried, '' he doesn't believe in free- 
dom ! " 

** He doesn't, but don't you see that he simply 
couldn't have jumped on you ? He would 
have thought you either a lunatic or a genius, 
and he would have feared to condemn you in 
case you might turn out to be the latter. I 
know an art critic in lyondon, and, beHeve me, 
the poor devil lives in terror lest he should 
damn the work of a new Augustus John. 
The Futurists aren't flourishing on their merits ; 
they are flourishing because the critics are in a 
holy funk to condemn them in case they might 
be artists after all." 

I want to meet Smart again. I like his 
style. 



I am indeed a Dominie in Doubt. What is 
education striving after ? I cannot say, for 
education is life and what the aim of life is 
no one knows. Psycho-analysis can clear up 
a life ; it can release bottled up energy, but 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 97 

it cannot say how the released energy is to be 
used. The anatyst cannot advise, because no 
man can tell another how to live his life. 
Freud clears up the past, but he cannot clear 
up the future. 

Is there such a thing as Re -incarnation ? 
I wonder. Am I living the life that my past 
lives on earth fitted me for ? If so analysis 
is wrong. If I am suffering from a severe 
neurosis it is because I earned this punishment 
in my past lives, and Freud has no right to 
cure me. He is interfering with the plans of 
the Almighty. If, as I have heard a Theoso- 
phist declare, the children in the slums are 
miserable because they failed to learn their 
lesson in previous lives, then the people who 
try to abolish slums are all wrong. I think 
my Theosophist would argue that the charitable 
person is growing in grace, thereby rising 
above his previous lives. And thus one soul 
helps another to rise to perfection. It may 
be, and I hope it is so, for then life would 
have a meaning. Pain and war w^ould then 
be less terrible, for they would be but incidents 
in the eternal unfolding of perfection. 

Yet I find myself doubting. If I am William 
Shakespeare born again I do not know it, 
and I am left in doubt as to whether I may 
not have been Charles Peace instead. Possibly 
I was both. 

Then there is psychical research. I have 
been to a medium and have heard things that 



gS A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

all the psycho-analysis in the world cannot 
account for. I want to believe that the dead 
can speak to us, but where are the dead ? 
I have read Sir Oliver I^odge's Raymond, 
and the description of the next world given 
there. Frankly I don't fancy it, and I have no 
desire to go there. 

How then can I attempt to educate children 
when the ultimate solution of life is denied me ? 
I can only stand by and give them freedom 
to unfold. I do not know whither they are 
going, but that is all the more a reason why I 
ought not to try to guide their footsteps. 
This is the final argument for the abolition 
of authority. We may beat and break a 
horse because we selfishly require a horse's 
service, and according to the accepted view 
a horse has no immortal soul. We dare not 
beat and break a child, for a child is going 
to an end that we cannot know. 

I like the Theosophist schools, although I 
do not Hke all Theosophists. Some of 
them seem to be living the higher life con- 
sciously, and repressing their lower natures. 
Most of them do not smoke or drink or eat 
meat or swear or go to music-halls. That may 
be living on a higher plane, but it is not living 
fully. Still, in many ways they are broad- 
minded. In their schools they do not force 
Theosophy down the children's throats ; they 
allow a great amount of freedom, but their 
schools are not free schools. There is a definite 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 99 

attempt to mould character chiefly by insisting 
on good taste. I am quite sure that no 
head-master of a Theosophical School would 
take his children to see a Charlie Chaplin film. 
Charlie is not obviously living the higher life ; 
he stands for the vulgar side of life ; he picks 
up girls and gets drunk (in the play) and is 
sea-sick and very vulgar about soda-water. 
I find myself insisting on the inclusion of 
Charlie in any scheme of education because 
no one ought to be taught to be shocked at 
sea-sickness and soda-water squirting. Charlie 
to me is the antidote to the higher-plane crowd ; 
he and his kind are as essential as Shelley. 
I admit that reading Shelle}^ is a higher kind 
of pleasure than watching " Champion Charlie/' 
but no human being can safely live on the higher 
plane, and no child wants to. Education 
must deal with all life ; a higher plane diet 
will produce hot-house plants, beautiful per- 
haps, but delicate and artificial. 



Old Willie Murra}^ the cobbler had been bed- 
ridden for over a year, and when I dropped 
into Dauvit's shop this morning Mary Rickart 
was telling Dauvit that his old master was 
dead. 

'' Aye, Dauvit,'' she was saying when I 
entered, '' I'm no the kind that speaks ill o' 
the deid, but I will say this, that WuU Murray 
had his faults. Aye, and though he's a corp 



100 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

the day, I canna pertend that he was ony 
freend o' mine/' 

When Mary had gone Dauvit turned to me 
with a queer smile. 

'' Dominie, you tell me that you have studied 
the science o' the mind, psy — what is't you 
call it ? " 

"Psychology," I said. 

*' That's the word. Weel then, dominie, 
just tell me why Mary Rickart had sic a pick 
at auld WilHe Murray." 

I smoked for a time thoughtfully. 

*' It's difficult, Dauvit. I haven't got enough 
evidence. However I think I can make a good 
guess." 

" Weel ? " 

'' Mary and Willie sat in the same class at 
school ? " 

" Good ! " said Dauvit, " they did." 

" And Marv was WilHe's first sweetheart ? " 

''Imphm!" 

'' Mary loved Wilhe and he loved her. They 
were sweethearts for a long time, but another 
damsel came and stole Willie's heart away. 
Mary wept bitter tears, but in time she repressed 
her love and it changed into hate." 

Dauvit chuckled. 

'' A very nice vStory," he said, " but, ye ken, 
it's just a story. You cudna guess the real 
reason why Mary hated him so much." 

" Then what was the real reason, Dauvit ? " 

He laughed. 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT loi 

" Mary hated Willie Murray because he 
aince telt her that she was a silly woman to 
think that she cud wear a number fower shoe 
on a number acht foot/' 

We laughed together, and then I said : 
" Dauvit, why did 3^ou never marry ? You 
like women I fancy/' 

My remark made him thoughtful. 

*' Man/' he said, " I've often speered the 
same question o' mysel. As a 3''0ung man 

I was gye fond o' the lassies, but I 

dinna ken ! " and he broke off suddenly and 
took up a boot. *' Thae soles are just paper 
noo-a-days," he growled. 

I refused to let him run away from the 
subject. 

" Had you a sweetheart ? " I asked. 

He laughed boisterously to hide his con- 
fusion. 

" Dozens o' them ! " he cried. 

" Then why didn't you marr^^ one of them ? " 

He shook his head. 

'' Dominie, that's the question." He stared 
at the grate for a while. '' There was Maggie 
Adams, a bonny lassie she was. Man, I mind 

when I took her to Kirriemair Market " 

He sighed. '' Aye, man, dominie, I Hked 
Maggie mair than ony o' the others." 

" Did she love someone else ? " I asked softly. 

Dauvit took some time to reply. 

'' No, man, Maggie wanted me." 



102 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

'' Then the fault lay on your side ? You 
didn't love her ! '' 

Dauvit brought his hand down on the board. 

'' Goad, man, but I did ! " 

I could not understand. 

'' Man, on the road hame frae Kirrie Market 

I was to speer if she wud marry me 

but I didna." 

We smoked silently for a long minute. 

*' Ye see,'' he went on slowly, ''Maggie was 
a bonny lassie and I liked to kiss and cuddle her, 
but kissin' and cuddlin' are a very sma' part 
o' marriage, dominie. There was something 
in Maggie that I was aye lookin' for, but cud 
never find. Aye, I tried to find it in other 
lassies, but I never fund it." 

" What was it you wanted to find, Dauvit ? " 

Dauvit paused. 

'* Ye micht call it a soul," he said. '* Oh, 
aye," he went on, '' Maggie was a bonny lassie 
wi' a heart o' gold, but she hadna a soul. 
Wud ye Hke to ken what stoppit me speerin' 
her that nicht as we cam through Zoar ? 
Man, I said to m^^sel : When we come to the 
toll bar 111 tak Maggie in my arms and sa^'' : 
' Maggie, I want ye, lassie ! ' " 

He had to light his pipe here. 

'* Weelaweel, we got to the toll bar and I 
said : ' Maggie, well sit doon on the bank 
for a while.' So we sat doon, and I was just 
try in' to screw up my courage when she pointed 
to the settin' sun. ' I'd like a dress like that, 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 103 

only bonnier/ she said. Man, dominie, I looked 

at that sunset wi' its gold and purple 

and syne I kent that Maggie was nae wife for 
me. I kent that she had nae soul." 

After a time I remarked : " And so, Dauvit, 
you are a bachelor because von were a 
poet ! " 

He busied himself with the paper sole. 

'' Maggie married Bob Wilson the farmer o' 
East Mains. Aye, and the marriage turned 
oot a happy one, for Bob never rose abune 
neeps and tatties in his life.'' Dauvit sighed. 
'' But I sometimes used to look at the twa o' 
them when their bairns were roond their knees, 
and syne I used to gie a big Daw^n ! and ging 
back to my wee hoose and mak my ain 
tea." 

''It doesna pay to hae a soul, dominie,'* 
he added with a short laugh. 

*' Perhaps you could have given her a soul, 
Dauvit," I said. 

He shook his head with decision. 

" Na, dominie, a soul is something ye're 
born wi' ; if it isna there it canna be put there. 
You sa3^ that I'm a poet, and you may be richt ; 
there may be a wee bit o' the artist in me, 
and ye never heard o' an artist that was happily 
married. Wumnian and art are opposites, 
and a man canna marry both." 

" That is true, Dauvit. But art is the 
feminine side of a man's nature ; it is the 
woman in, him and the woman is 



104 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

superfluous to him, for she becomes the rival 
of the woman in himself/' 

This thought impressed Dauvit. 

" Noo I understand Rabbie Burns/' he cried. 
" Rabbie cudna love a wumman because he 
loved the wumman in himsel. She was the 
wife that bore his bairns — his poems/' He 
paused, and a pained look came to his face. 
'* There may be a poet in me, dominie," he said 
ruefully, ''but she has borne me nae bairns. 

lamaneo' themuteiiigloriousMiltons 

and I wud ha' been better if I had married 
Maggie and talked aboot neep^ and tatties 
a' my life/' 

" You couldn't have done it, Dauvit," I 
said as I rose to go. 

From the door I looked back at the old man 
as he stared at the fender. 

f!* » * ?:? o o 

One of the analysts says that the flirt is 
suffering from a mother complex. He has never 
got over his infantile love for his mother, 
and he is always trying to find the mother 
again in women. Hence he is like a bee, 
sipping at one flower and then flying on to 
another. 

I suspect that many a bachelor is a bachelor 
because his early love is fixed on the mother. 
Few mothers reaHse the danger of coddling 
their children. I have heard grown men dying 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 105 

in pain call on their mothers. It is a hard 
task for parents, but they must always try to 
break their children's fixation upon them. 

Women having father-complexes are com- 
mon. The other day I met a girl who had 
no interest in young men ; all her interest 
was in men with beards. No matter what the 
conversation was about she managed to men- 
tion her father " Father says ! " She 

,will probably marry a man twice her age. 
It is well-known that boys of seventeen often 
fall in love with women of thirty, while adoles- 
cent girls usually fall in love with men of 
thirty. They are not really in love ; they 
are looking for a substitute for the mother or 
father. 

The psychology of the man of forty who 
falls in love with the girl of sixteen is more 
difficult to grasp. I think that in most cases 
the man's love interest is fixed av/ay back 
in childhood ; often the girl of sixteen is a sub - 
stitvite for a beloved sister. Perhaps on the 
s other hand, a man of forty's paternal instinct 
has been starved so long that he wants to find 
at once a wife and a child. 

Few of us realise how much of our love interest 
is fixed in the past. Think of the men who want 

to be mxOthered by their wives they 

generally address their wives as " Mother." 
I know happily married men who are psychically 
children ; " mother " w^on't allow them to 
carry coals or wash dishes or brush clothes ; 



io5 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

she treats them as they unconsciously desire 
to be treated — as babes. 

It ma}^ be that Dauvit has a strong mother 
complex. He often talks of his mother, and 
more than once I have heard him say that she 
was the best woman he had ever known. It 
may be that he was unconsciously looking for 
the mother in Maggie and the other girls, 
and failed to find her. Maggie's remark about 
the sunset and the dress was not enough to 
stifle his love declaration. The soul he longed 
to find in Maggie may have been the soul of 

the mother he knew as an infant the 

soul of his ideal woman. 

The more I see of men the less importance 
I pay to their conscious reasons for attitudes. 
'' I hate Brown ; he never washes " ; '*" I 
dislike Mrs. Smith ; she uses bad language." 
'' Murphy is a rotter ; he has no manners." 
Statements like these are rationalisations ; the 
real reason for the dislike lies deeper in every 
case. 



VI 

THE law courts have re-introduced flogging 
for criminals. To the best of my know- 
ledge no member of the law profession 
has protested. If there is a reform movement 
within the law I never heard of it. 

The curse of law is that it works according 
to precedent, and it is therefore conservative. 
Our judges hand out sentences in blissful 
ignorance of later psychology. I^ast week a 
boy of eleven was birched for holding up 
another boy of nine on the highway and demand- 
ing tuppence or his life. The attitude of the 
bench is that fear of another flogging will 
prevent that boy from turning highwayman 
again. I admit that fear will cure him of 
that special vice, but what the bench does not 
know is that the boy's anti-social energy 
will take another form. Every act of man is 
prompted by a wish, and very often this wish is 
unconscious. And all the birching in the world 
will not destroy a wish ; the most it can do 
is to change its form. 

Without an analysis of the boy no one 
can tell what unconscious wish impelled him 
to turn highwayman, but speaking generally 
a boy expresses his self-assertion in terms of 
anti-social behaviour only when his education 

107 



io8 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

has been bad. I believe that all juvenile 
delinquency is due to bad education. Our 
schools enforce passivity on the child ; his 
creative energy is bottled up. No boy who 
has tools and a bench to work with will express 
himself by smashing windows. Delinquency 
is merely displaced social conduct ; the motive 
of the little boy who turned highwayman was 
essentially the motive of the boy who builds 
a boat. 

Ah ! but we have Industrial Schools for bad 
boys ! 

I spent an evening with an Industrial School 
boy of thirteen not long ago. It was an 
unlovely tale he told me of his life in school. 
I got the impression of a building half -prison, 
half -barracks. No one was allowed to go out 
unless to football matches when the school 
team was playing. Punishment was stern and 
frequent. 

'' One old guy, 'e sends you to the boss for 
pimishment and says you gave 'im an insubor- 
dinate look, and you ain't allowed to deny wot 
'e says." 

'' lyook here, Jim," I said, '' suppose I took 
you to a free school to-morrow, a school where 
you could do what you liked, what's the first 
thing you would do ? " 

A wild look came into his eyes. 

" I'd lay out the blarsted staff," he said 
tensely. 

'' But," I laughed, " what would be the point 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 109 

of la^nng me out if I gave you freedom ? 
Wiiat have you got against me?" 

" Oh/' he said, '' I thought you meant if 
I got freedom in the Industrial School ! " 

That school is condemned ; if a school 
produces one boy who hates and fears its 
teachers, it is a bad school. 

I think of the other way, the Homer I^ane way. 

Homer I^ane was superintendent of the lyittle 
Commonwealth in Dorset. He attended the 
juvenile courts and begged the magistrates 
to hand over to him the worst cases they had. 
He took the children down to Dorset and gave 
them freedom. He refused to lay down any 
laws, and naturally the beginning of the Com- 
monwealth was chaos. I^ane joined in the 
anti-social behaviour ; he became one of the 
gang. WHien the citizens thought that their 
best way of expressing themselves was to smash 
windows, lyane helped them to smash them. 
His marvellous psychological insight will best 
be illnst rated by the stoiy of Jabez. 

Jabez was a thoroughly bad character ; 
he had been thief and highwayman, a bully 
who could fight with science. He came to the 
Commonwealth and was astonished. He found 
boys and girls working hard all day, and making 
their ovm laws at their citizen meetings at 
night. Jabez could not tmderstand it, and not 
imderstanding he felt hostile. 

The citizens lived in cottages, and one night 
I/ane went over to the cottage in which Jabez 



no A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

lived. They were having tea, and Lane sat 
down beside Jabez. 

" What are you alwa3^s grousing about, 
Jabez ? " he asked. '' Don't you Hke the 
Commonwealth ? " 

"No," said Jabez viciously. 

"What's wrong with it?" 

" It's too respectable for me," said Jabez, 
and his eyes wandered to the table. " Them 
fancy cups and saucers ! Wot's the good o' 
things like that to me ? I'd like to smash 
the whole lot o' them." 

lyane rose from the table, walked to the fire- 
place, took up the poker and handed it to Jabez. 

" Smash them," he said. 

Jabez had all e^^es turned towards him. 
He seized the poker and smashed his cup and 
saucer. 

" Excellent ! " cried I^ane, " Jabez is making 
the Commonwealth a better place," and he 
pushed forward another cup and saucer. These 
were at once smashed, and I/ane proceeded 
to shove forward the other dishes. But by 
this time Jabez was beginning to feel queer. 
Breaking dishes was good fun when you were 
breaking laws, but here there was no law to 
break, and Jabez felt that he was doing a 
foolish thing. He wanted to stop, but he could 
not see how he was to stop with dignity. 
Fortunately one of the other inmates of the 
cottage came to his aid. 

" It's all very well for you, Mr. I^ane," she 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT iii 

said, *' but this isn't your cottage, and you are 
making Jabez break our dishes." 

Jabez hailed the idea with delight ; he now 
had an excellent excuse for stopping. 

'' Right you are ! " cried Lane cheerfully, 
" Jabez will break something else/' and he took 
out his gold watch and placed it on the table. 

" Smash that, Jabez." 

'' No," said Jabez, " I won't smash your 
watch." 

Now Jabez had a saying that if a man were 
dared to do a thing and he didn't do it he was 
a coward. 

" I dare you to smash the watch." 

Jabez seized the poker aj;^aiii. 

*' What ! You dare me \ " 

" Yes, I dare you." 

He looked at the watch for a few seconds ; 
then he threw down the poker and rushed from 
the room. 

Poor Jabez was killed in France. I saw the 
letters that he wrote to Lane from the front, 
and they were the letters of a decent, good 
boy. 

The early history of Jabez was one of con- 
stant suppression. Authority was alwa};^ step- 
ping in and saying: ''Don't do that!" As 
a result Jabez at the age of seventeen was 
psychically an infant. The infantile desire 
to break things was suppressed, but it lived 
on in the unconscious, and years later Jabez 
found himself behavinsf lil^e a cliild of tliree. 



112 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

The cure was to encourage him to act in his 
infantile way ; by smashing a few cups Jabez 
got rid of his long pent up infantile wish to 
destroy. Discipline would have kept the 
childish wish underground ; freedom led to the 
expression of the wish. 

Homer Lane is the apostle of Release. He 
holds that Authority is fatal for the child ; 
suppression is bad ; the only way is to allow 
the child freedom to express itself in the way 
it wants to. And because I count among my 
friends boys and girls who once went to the 
lyittle Commonwealth as criminals, I believe 
that lyane is right. I also believe that the 
schools will come to see that he was right 
somewhere about the year 2500. 



Conversation to-night in Dauvit's shop 
turned on Spiritualism. Dauvit is a firm 
believer, and he often goes to Dundee and 
Aberdeen to attend seances. 

"It's just a lot o' blethers,'' said Jake Tosh 
contemptuously. " When ye're deid ye're deid, 
and that's a' aboot it. Na, na, Dauvit, them 
that sees ghosts is either drunk or daft." 

" That's just yer ignorance, Jake," said 
Dauvit. ''Do ye ken Vviiaur Brazil is ? " 

" Wha is he ? " asked Jake puzzled. 

'' It's no a he ; it's a place. I asked ye that 
question just to prove that a man that doesna 
ken his ain world canna speak wi' ony authority 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 113 

o' the next world. Yer mind's ower narrow, 
Jake ; ye've no vision/' 

" Na, na, Dauvit/' laughed Jake, *' it winna 
do. Spooks and things is just a curran non- 
sense, and no sane man wud believe in them. 
What do you say, dominie ? " 

*' I am wiUing to beheve that the dead do 
communicate," I said. 

Jake was thoroughly amused. 

'' It's a queer thing," he said musingly, 
'' that the more eddication a man has the more 
be believes in rubbish. Here's Dauvit here, 
a man that reads Shakespeare and Burns and 
Carlyle, and the dominie there that went through 
a college, and the both o' you believe things 
that I stoppit belie vin' when I was sax year 
auld. Then there's Sir OHver lyodge, and Conan 
Doyle. Oh, aye, the Bible was quite richt 
when it said : Much learning hath made them 
mad." 

'' What do you think happens to the dead, 
Jake ? " I asked. ^ 

" As the tree falleth so it lies," quoted Jake. 
" There's onty the tw^a places after death ; 
if 3^e're good ye go to Heaven ; if ye're bad ye go 
to Hell. And that's why I say that thae mes- 
sages from the deid are rubbish, cos if a man's 
in Heaven he's no going to leave a place like 
that to come doon to speak to a daft auld 
cobbler hke Dauvit in a w^ee room doon in 
Dundee. And if a man's in Hell the Devil 
will tak good care that he doesna get oot." 



114 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

I wondered to find that Daiivit had no answer 
to this. I guessed that Dauvit's silence was 
due to his early training. He was brought up 
in the old stern vScots way, and although 
he has now rejected the old behefs intellectualh^, 
his unconscious still chngs to them emotionally. 
I fancy that if I were very very ill I might go 
back to my childish fear of Hell-fire, for, in 
illness old emotions return, and intellect flees. 
Dauvit would no doubt react in the same way. 



Many people seem to have a decided fear 
of pS3^cho-analysis. A mother writes me from 
lyondon saying that she would like to send her 
girl to my new school, only she is afraid that I 
shall attempt to analyse the children. 

The fear of psycho-analysis comes from the 
general belief that Freud traces every neurosis 
to early sex experiences. Whether Freud is 
right or not does not concern the teacher ; he 
deals with normal children, and to try to 
analyse a normal child appears to me to be 
unnecessary. The teacher's job is to see that 
the children are free from fear and free 
to create ; if he does his task well he is prevent- 
ing neurosis. 

A neurosis is the outcome of repression ; 
the neurotic is a person whose libido or life 
force is bottled up ; he can be cured only by 
letting his pent up emotions free. The aim 
of education is to allow emotional release, 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 115 

so that there will be no bottling up, and no 
future neurosis ; and this release comes through 
interest. The boy who hates algebra and has 
to work examples is getting no release what- 
ever, for his mind is divided ; his attention 
goes to his quadratic equations, but his in- 
terest is elsewhere. 

Hence I do not think analysis is necessary 
when children are being freely educated. In 
an exceptional case a little analysis will do 
good. If I see a child unhappy, moody, 
anti-social, a thief, a bully, I consider it my 
job to make an attempt to find out what 
is at the back of his mind. With a young boy 
it is not advisable to tell him the whole truth 
about himself ; the teacher discovers the truth 
by watching the child at play, by studying 
his wishes as expressed in his writing, by 
noting his attitude to his playmates. WTien 
he has made his diagnosis the teacher can then 
make the necessary changes in the boy's 
environment. 

I recall the case of Tommy, aged ten. His 
class was constructing a Play Town after the 
fashion set by Caldwell Cook in his dehghtful 
book The Play Way. Tommy w^orked with 
enthusiasm, too much enthusiasm, for he 
pinched the girls' sand for his railway track. 
The girls objected, and a regular wordy battle 
took place. Tommy felt that he was beaten, 
and he ceased work. 
I was not very much surprised when the girls 



ii6 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

came and told me that Tomm}^ was shying^ 
bricks at the railway line he had been so keen 
on constructing. Tommy was brought up be- 
fore the assembled class, and they voted 
unanimously that he be forbidden to approach 
within ten yards of Play Town. Tommy 
grinned maliciously. That night the town 
appeared to have been the victim of an earth- 
quake. 

I went to Tommy. 

" Why don't you Hke the Play Town ? " I 
asked. 

*' Because the girls are too bossy/' he said. 
'* It was my town ; I began it, and I don't 
see why they should be in it at all." 

*' And you want a Play Town all to yourself? ' ' 
I asked. 

''Yes." 

" Right ho," I said easily. " Why not start 
to -build one ? " 

His eyes lit up, and away he ran to lay his 
foundations. He worked eagerly all day, but 
at night he seemed dissatisfied. 

'* I haven't got any railway or houses ; 
Christo won't lend me a bit of his railway, 
and Gerda has all the houses." 

I left him to work out his problem. In the 
morning he solved it ; Christo wouldn't lend 
him any rails, but if Tommy liked he, Christo, 
would run his line up to Tommy's town from 
the class town. Tommy readily agreed* In 
a week's time Tommy's town was a suburb 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 117 

of the bigger town, and Tommy was appointed 
President of the whole state. He spent many 
an hour building his bridges and digging his 
tunnels. At first he would allow no one to 
enter his suburb, but in a few days he ceased 
to claim it as his oy.ti, and he worked as a mem- 
ber of the gang. 

I think that most anti-social children are 
like Tom^my : when their self-assertion is threa- 
tened they react \mth hostility. The cure 
for them is to direct their self-assertion to 
things instead of people. No bo}^ will try 
to break up a ball game if he has a rabbit 
hutch to construct. 

The danger is that the teacher will often 
step in when the boy ought to be left 
to his companions. The gang is the best 
disciplinarian. 

One day a class and I were writing five- 
minute essa^'-s. I would call out a word or 
a phrase, and we would all start to write. 
The children loved the method ; it allowed 
so much play for originality. For example, 
when I gave the word " broken " one girl 
wrote of her broken doll, another of a broken 
tramp, another of a broken heart ; a bo^^ 
wrote a witty essay on being stoney broke, 
another wrote of a broken window. 

On this day Wolodia, a boy of eleven, did 
not want to write essays. I called out a 
word, and we started to write. Wolodia began 
to talk loudly. 



ii8 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

" Stop it, man/' I said impatiently, " 3^ou're 
spoiling our essay.'' 

He grinned and v/cnt on talking. 

" Oh, shut up 1 " cried Joy. 

** Shan't ! " he snapped, and he went on 
talking. 

Diana rose with a determined air. 

'' We'll chuck him out," she said grimly, 
and the class seized him and heaved him 
out. Then they barricaded the door with 
desks. Wolodia made a big row by ham- 
mering on the door, and as a result we could 
not proceed with our writing. 

" Let him in," I vSUggested. 

The class protested. 

" He'll sit like a lamb for the rest of the 
period," I said. 

They took away the desk and Wolodia 
came in. He went to his seat .... and 
not a sound came from him during the rest 
of the period. This incident impressed me 
greatly ; my complaint, Joy's complaint did 
not affect him, but when the gang was against 
him he was defeated. It was a beautiful 
instance of the force of public opinion. 

Cases of stealing should be treated by 
analysis. Moral lectures are useless ; the cause 
lies in the unconscious, and the moral lecture 
does not touch the unconscious. Nor does 
punishment affect the root cause of the de- 
linquency. The teacher must dig down into the 
child's unconscious in order to find the cause. 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT iiq 

An illuminating book for all teachers and 
parents to read is Healy's Mental Disorders 
and Misconduct. He shows that stealing is 
very often a symptomatic act. The mechanism 
of many cases is something like this : a child 
has been punished for sexual activities ; later 
he breaks into a store and steals an article. 
Sex activities and thieving have this in common, 
that they are both forbidden, but the boy 
has found that much more ado is made about 
sex activities than about stealing. So when 
he is actuated by a sexual urge he dare not 
indulge it ; but his sexual wish finds a 
substitute ; it goes out to the associated 
forbidden thing .... the article on the 
store counter. 

We see the same sort of mechanism in the 
neurotic patient ; she fears her own sex 
impulses, and because she dare not admit 
her sex wishes into consciousness she projects 
her fear on to dogs or mice or rats. All 
phobias — fear of closed places, fear of open 
places, fear of heights — are displaced fears ; 
the sufferer is really afraid of his own un- 
conscious wishes. 

I do not say that all juvenile stealing is due 
to repressed sex. Stealing may mean to a 
boy a method of self-assertion ; it may mean 
that thus he rebels against authority of father 
and teacher ; it may be the result of any one of a 
dozen causes. But whatever the cause steal- 
ing is always associated with unhappiness, 



120 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

and the teacher must try to cure the 
unhappiness. 

In my Dominie s Log I confessed that I 
Hked to cheat the raHway company, and I 
excused it on the ground that " a ten-mile 
journey without a ticket is the only romantic 
experience left in a drab world." That was 
a delightful bit of rationalisation. The real 
reason for my delinquency lay in my un- 
conscious. As a child I impotently rebelled 
against the authority of parents and teachers, 
lyater in life I unconsciously identified the 
railway company with the authorities of my 
infancy. Authorit^^ said : *' Don't do that or 
you will be smacked " ; the railway company 
put up a notice saying : " Don't travel without 
a ticket or you'll be fined forty shillings." 

My rebellion was really a rebellion against 
authority. This may seem to be a far-fetched 
explanation, but the fact remains that now 
that I have discovered the reason I have no 
more desire to cheat the railway company. 



Old Jeems Broon was buried to-day, and 
Dauvit went to the funeral. He came back 
chuckling. 

'' What's the joke, Dauvit ? " I asked. 

*' The burial service," laughed Dauvit. " You 
ken what sort o' a man Jeems was ; an auld 
sinner if there ever was a sinner in Tarbonny, 
a bad auld scoondrel. Weel, Jeems hadna 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 121 

been at the kirk for twenty years, and of 
coorse the minister didna ken onything aboot 
him. So when he gave the funeral prayer 
he referred to auld Jeems as ' this holy man 
whose life stands as an example to those 
still tarrying in the flesh/ Goad, but I burst 
oot laughin' ! I did that ! " 

" Had I been the minister," said I, "I 
should certainly have made a few inquiries 
about Jeems/' 

" But there's a better story than that aboot 
the minister," went on Dauvit with a laugh. 
" Mag Currie's little lassie had the diphtheria, 
and at the end o' the week the minister was 
asked to come oot to tak' a burial service 
in Mag's bed room. Man, he was eloquent ! 
He spoke earnestly aboot this flower plucked 
before it had reached its full bloom, this 
innocent life so sadly cut off ; he was most 
touchin' when he turned to Mag and her 
man and said : * Mourn not for those hands 
that never did wrong, the lisping tongue that 
never spoke evil, the wide pure e3^es that 
looked their love for you.' " 

" I suppose the parents broke down at 
that," I said. 

" Not they ! " chuckled Dauvit, " for the 
corpse wasna their lassie ava ; it was auld 
Drucken Findlay the lodger/' 

I always like to hear Dauvit talk about 
cninisters, and I encouraged him to go on. 

'* It's a very queer thing, dominie, that 



122 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

a body ay wants to laugh at the wrong time. 
In the kirk and at a funeral — that's when 
I want to laugh. 

" I mind when the minister was awa' for 
his holidays, and there was an auld minister 
frae the Heelands cam' to tak' his place. 
This auld man had a habit o' readin' a verse 
and syne stoppin' to explain it to the congre- 
gation. 

'' Weel aweel, wan Sunday he was readin' 
a chapter frae the Auld Testament, and he 
cam' to the words : ' And the Angel of the 
Ivord appeared unto Hosea.' vSo he looks 
at the congregation ower his specs and he 
says : ' The Angel of the lyord appeared unto 
Hosea.' Now, prethren, we must ask our- 
selves this important question : Was Hosea 
afraid ? No, Hosea was not afraid. You 
would have been afraid, prethren ; / would 
have been afraid. You and I would have 
begun to quake and tremble, but Hosea was 
not afraid ; he was a prave man, a pold man. 
When we are in trouble let us remember that 
Hosea was not afraid.' 

** So the auld man he turns ower the page 
and reads the next verse : ' And Hosea was 
sore afraid.' " 

" What did he say then ? " I asked. 

" He was a cunnin' auld deevil," said Dauvit, 
" for he gave a bit cough and says : ' Prethren, 
that is a wrong translation from the original 
Hebrew/ " 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 123 

*' I don't think you like ministers, Dauvit/' 
I said. 

He paused in his efforts to place a new 
needle in his sewing-machine. 

" No, man, 1 do not,'' he said slowly. '' Now- 
adays the kirk is just a job like anything 
else ; men go in for it for the loaves and 
fishes mostly, and their prayers never get 
past the roof. And as for the congregation, 
the kirk is just a respectable sort o' society. 
I tell ye, dominie, that releegion is deid. At 
least, Christianity is deid. That was bound 
to come ; flowers, folk, hooses, trees, horses, 
aye, and nations, have a birth, a youth, middle 
age, auld age, and then death. It's the law 
o' nature, and a religion is no exception." 

" True, O philosopher ! " I said, " but there 
is always new life, and new life comes from 
the old. The flower dies and its seed lives ; 
man dies and his seed inherit the earth. 
Christianity dies and — and what ? " 

" That may be," he said thoughtfully. " It 
may be that the new religion will grow from 
the seed o' the deid Christianity ; that 
I canna say. What I do say is that ministers 
are oot-o'-date ; they are doin' useless labour 
.... when they're no fishin' and curlin'." 



VII. 



DUNCAN came over to-night, and he asked 
my advice about books. 

'' What books would you advise a 
teacher to buy ? " he asked. 

'' There are scores of good books," I replied, 
'' but no teacher can afford to buy 
them." 

'* I know," he said crossly ; "I/ve had 
a row with the Income Tax people. I asked 
for a rebate of ten pounds for necessary school 
books, and they wouldn't allow it, although 
I'm told that if a I^ondon merchant buys 
a lyondon Directory he gets a rebate for the 
amount." 

*' I agree that it is unjust," I said, '' but 
the new Income Tax proposals allow twenty 
pounds a year for teachers' books." 

'' Just tell us what you would advise a 
teacher to spend his twenty quid on," said 
Macdonald. 

'' It depends on his tastes," I said. *' If 
his subject is History he will buy history 
books ; if liis subject is behaviour, he'll buy 
psycholog books." 

" Give us an idea of your own library," said 
Duncan. 

124 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 125 

I sat down and wrote out a list from memory. 

It ran as follows : — 
Books on Education : — 

The Play Way, by Caldwell Cook. 

The Path to Freedom in the School, by 
Norman MacMunn. 

What Is and What Might Be, by Edmond 
Holmes. 

Montessori's three volumes. 

An Adventure in Education, by J. H. 
vSimpson. 
Books on Psycho analysis and Psychoi^ogy : 

Freud's Interpretation of Dreams, Psycho- 
pathology of Everyday Life, Three Contributions 
to the Sexual Theory. 

Jung's Psychology of the Unconscious, Studies 
in Word Association, Analytical Psychology. 

Frink's Morbid Fears and Compulsions. 

Maurice Nicoll's Dream Psychology. 

Morton Prince's The Unconscious. 

Pfister's The Psycho- analytic Method. 

Ernest Jones' Psycho-analysis. 

Ferenczi's Contributions to Psycho-analysis. 

Wilfred Lay's The Child's Unconscious 
Mind. 

Moll's The Sexual Life of the Child. 

Adler's The Neurotic Constitution. 

Bernard Hart's The Psychology of Insanity. 
Crowd Psychoi^ogy : — 

The Crowd in Peace and War, Martin Conway. 

Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War, 
Trotter. 



126 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

The Crowd, Gustave le Bon. 
Generai, Psychoi^ogy : — 

Psychology and Everyday Life, Swift. 

Textbook of Psychology, James. 

The Boy and His Gang, Puffer. 

Mental Conflicts and Misconduct, Healy. 

The Individual Delinquent, Healy. 

Rational Sex Ethics, Robie. 

Social Psychology, McDougall. 

The Play of Man, Groos. 

*' That's too much for me/' said Duncan. 
" I couldn't afford a quarter of these books. 
What books would 3^ou recommend if you 
had to choose half a dozen for a hard-up 
dominie ? " 

I thought for a little, and then I replied : 
*' Bernard Hart's The Psychology of Insanity^ 
two bob ; Frink's Morbid Fears and Com- 
pulsions, a first-rate book on analysis, a guinea ; 
The Crowd in Peace and War, by Sir Martin 
Conway, eight and six ; Healy' s Mental Con- 
flicts and Misconduct, ten and six ; and Wilfred 
Lay's The Child's Unconscious Mind, ten and 
six." 

" But," cried Duncan, *' I don't want to 
set up an asylum ! What's the good of books 
on insanity and morbid fears to a teacher ? " 

I explained that the titles of Hart's and 
Frink's books were misleading, although the 
difference between the mind of the lunatic 
and the mind of the average man is merely 
one of degree. Bernard Hart shows that the 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 127 

lunatic has the same faults as we have, only 
more so. Frink's book is badly named ; it 
is an excellent work on mind mechanisms. 
Any teacher who reads these six books with 
understanding will never again use a strap 
on a pupil. If I were Education Minister, 
I should present every school in Britain with 
a copy of each of the six. 

Macdonald asked if I had any books on 
hypnotism and suggestion. 

"No," I said, "but I have read them 
through a library. I don't believe in either 
because they do not touch root causes. We 
are all suffering from bottled up infantile 
emotion, and analysis goes to the root of 
the matter ; it makes what is unconscious 
conscious, and enables the patient to re-educate 
himself, to use the old repressed emotion 
up in his daily Hfe. Analysis means release. 
Suggestion does not touch the root repressed 
emotion, and I fancy that after suggestion 
the symptom merely changes. A man has 
a phobia of cats. By suggestion I can dispel 
his fear of cats, but the fear is transferred to 
something else, and he then has an exaggerated 
fear of catching tuberculosis. Unless the 
ancient cause becomes conscious it is not 
released. 

"We see suggestion working in our schools 
daily. By suggestion parents and teachers 
force the child to inhibit his gross sexual 
wishes, and in a short time the child accept^; 



128 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

the ideals of his masters. At first he inhibits 
a desire because father thinks it naughty ; 
later he inhibits it because he himself thinks 
it naughty. But the gross sexual v/ish lives 
on in the unconscious .... hence the neu- 
rosis, hence the respectable old men who are 
imprisoned for showing gross pictures to child- 
ren, hence the frequent indecent assaults on 
children. All these unfortunate people are 
suffering from the results of early suggestion 
— the suggestion that sex is sin. That primitive 
sex impulses can be sublimated I admit, but 
the teacher's job is not to preach that sex 
activities are evil ; his job is to help the child 
to use up his primitive sex energy in creative 
work.'' 



What is education's chief aim ? The reply 
generally given is that education's aim is 
to help a child to live its life fully. Yet it 
seems to me that that reply does not go far 
enough ; I think that the aim should be to 
help a child to live its cosmic life fully, to 
live for others. Every human is egocentric, 
selfish. No human ever rises above selfish- 
ness, only there are degrees of selfishness. 
I buy a motor-cycle because I am selfish ; 
and you found a hospital for orphans because 
you are selfish. It is my pleasure to have 
a Sunbeam ; it is yours to help the poor. 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 129 

Your selfishness has become altruism ; that 
is, in pleasing yourself you have managed 
to please others. The aim in education is 
not to abolish selfishness ; it is to educe the 
selfishness that is altruistic. Hence it may 
be said that education's chief aim is to teach 
one how to love. No, that won't do ; no 
one can teach another how to love ; the 
teacher's job is to evoke love. This he can 
do only by loving. If I hate my pupils I 
evoke hate from them ; if I love them I evoke 
love from them in return. 

Is it possible to love your neighbour as 
yourself ? It is when you know yourself. 
You hate in others what you hate in your- 
self, and you love in others what is lovable 
in yourself. So that in loving your neighbour 
you are loving yourself. 

If, then, the teacher's first aim is to evoke 
the love of his pupils, he must know himself, 
and knowing must love himself. Every day 
pupils are suffering because of the teacher's 
hatred of himself. 

Dominie Brown rises in the morning surly 
and unhappy. He complains about the bacon 
and eggs at breakfast .... no, the red 
herring ; dominies cannot afford bacon and 
eggs .... and Mrs. Brown makes unpleasant 
remarks. Brown crosses the road to school 
with thunder on his face, and the children 
shiver in terror all morning. 

If Brown could sit down calnilv to think 



130 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

out his bad mood, he would realise that he 
was punishing the children because he was 
worsted in his word battle with his wife, ^nd 
he would he quite wrong. The truth would 
be that he was punisliing the children because 
he was at war with himself. His early morning 
ugly mood betrayed a mental conflict. Hating 
himself, he hated his wife ; his hate evoked 
her hate .... and thus the circle was 
completed. 

We might trace all the futilities, all the 
stupidities of mankind, all the wars and crimes 
and injustices to man's ignorance of self. To 
know all is to forgive all. Christ condemned 
no one because he was at peace with himself. 
Yet, I suddenly remember that He whipped 
the money-changers out of the Temple. This 
incident is comforting, for it shows that the 
most lovable man who ever lived betrayed 
one human frailty on one occasion at least. 
But now I am preaching again. 



I went to see Charlie Chaplin in " Shoulder 
Arms " last night. Charlie is an artist of 
high quality ; for once I think as the crowd 
thinks. But I leave the crowd when it comes 
to appreciating the '' moving human dramas " 
in five parts. 

The cinema must be reckoned with in any 
educational scheme. One may learn more about 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 131 

crowd psychology from attendance at cinemas 
than from reading books on crowd psychology. 
The cinema is popular because it encourages 
day-dreaming or phantas3^ There are two 
kinds of thinking, reality thinking and phan- 
tasy or day-dreaming. Phantasying is the 
easier of the two ; I can sit for hours building 
castles in Spain, and I never grow tired ; 
but if I have to sit down and think out the 
Theory of Quadratics I soon become weary. 
In reality thinking the intellect is active, 
but in day-dreaming emotion is in control. 
Day-dreaming gets nowhere ; the asylums are 
full of day-dreamers who spend their hours 
constructing beautiful phantasies. In child- 
hood phantasy is supreme. Bobby turns the 
nursery into a jungle ; the sofa is a tiger, 
the chairs are lions, the rocking-horse is an 
elephant. It is all real to him. And in later 
years Bobby often returns to his childish 
phantasying. We all do. What young lover 
has not phantasied a burning mansion where 
his lady love is imprisoned ? Have we not 
all clambered up the water pipes and rescued 
her from the flames ? 

The world of the theatre is a phantasy 
world. With the rising of the curtain we 
forget our outside life ; we live the part of 
the hero or the heroine. To this day I always 
leave a theatre with a vague depression of 
spirits ; everyday humdrum life chills me 
when I come out to the street. Reality is 



132 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

always difficult to face. The great popularity 
of the cinema is due to this human desire for 
make-believe. Cinema-going is a regression 
to the infantile ; we return to the childish 
phase where the wijsh was all powerful. In 
the cinema the villain is always worsted ; 
the wronged heroine always falls into the 
hero's arms at the end. Life for most of 
us means trials and sorrows and conflicts, and 
we long to return to the nursery phase where 
life was what we wished it to be. The cinema 
and the public-house are the most convenient 
doors by which we can regress. 

The " moving drama " is the other side of 
the industrial picture. Life for the masses 
means dirt and disease, ugly factories, sordid 
homes, mean streets. The moving drama takes 
the masses away from grim reality ; they 
see beautifully gowned women in drawing- 
rooms ; they see the King reviewing his regi- 
ments ; they see wild and free cowboys chasing 
Red Indians. For two hours they live . . . 
and then they go out again into their world 
of mere existence. And it is all wrong, tragic- 
ally wrong. The cinema craze means that 
life is too ugly to face ; it means that the 
masses are fleeing from reality and to flee 
from reality is fatal. Day-dreams are laudable 
only when they come true. If the masses 
day-dreamed of an economic Utopia and forth- 
with set about building a New Jerusalem, 
their phantasies would become realities ; but 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 133 

the moving human drama never leads to 
building ; it is raw whisky swallowed to bring 
C'blivion. The moving human drama will live 
•and flourish so long as mankind tolerates 
the slavery of industrialism. It is a powerful 
weapon for capitalism ; like the church and 
the public-house, it keeps the wage-slaves 
quiet. 



To-night the conversation in Dauvit's shop 
turned to the subject of honours. 

''They tell me," said Jake Tosh, ''that 
you can buy a knighthood, or a peerage for 
that matter/' 

" Yea, man ! '' said Willie Simpson, the 
joiner and undertaker from Tillymains. 

" So there's no muckle chance o' you getting 
ane, Willie," said Dauvit. 

The joiner smoked thoughtfully for a while. 

" Na, Dauvit," he said, " there's little chance 
o' an undertaker gettin' a title. You would 
think na that the man that coffmed the likes 
o' l4oyd George wud get a knighthood." 

Dauvit cackled. 

" Honours are sold, as Jake says ; they 
are never given for public services." 

I am afraid the joke was lost on most of 
the assembly. Jake failed to see it. It is 
said that Jake has been known to laugh at 
a joke only once, and that was when the 



134 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

earth gave way beneath the minister's feet 
when he was conducting a service at a grave- 
side, and he fell into the open grave. 

" Undertakin'/' continued the joiner, *' is 
a verra queer trade/' 

Jake shivered. 

" I dinna ken how ye can do it," he said ; 
*' man, it wud gie me the scunners.'' 

" Man, ye soon get accustomed to it," said 
the joiner. '* Of course, it has its limitations ; 
ye canna verra weel advertise in the front 
page o' The Daily Mail, but, man, it's what 
ve niicht call a safe trade." 

" How safe ? " I asked. 

** Oh, ye never need to worry aboot yer 
custom ; it's aye there. Noo in other lines 
the laws o' supply and demand are tricky. 
I mind a gey puckle years syne there was 
a craze for walkin'-sticks to' ebony handles. 
Weel, I went doon to Dundee and bocht ten 
pund worth o' ebony, and afore the wood 
was delivered the fashion had changed, and 
the men were all bu3dn' cheese-cutter bonnets, 
so here was I left wi' ten pund worth o' ebony 
on my hands .... and if I hadna sold 
it to Davie I^amb the cabinet-maker for thir- 
teen pund I niicht ha' lost the money. Noo, 
in my trade there's no sudden change o' fashion 
as ye niicht say ; the demand is what ye 
niicht call constant, and that's what makes 
me say it is a safe trade." 

Dauvit winked to me surreptitiously. 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 135 

'* Noo, joiner," he said, *' will ye tell me 
wan thing ? I want to ken the inner workin's 
o' an undertakker's mind. When somebody- 
is verra ill, what's your attitude ? I mean 
to say, do ye sort o' look on the illness wi' 
hope or what ? When ye see a fine set-up 
man on the road, do ye look at him wi' a 
professional eye and say to yersell : * Sax 
feet by twa ; a bonny corp \' ? " 

*'I'm no so bad as that, Dauvit," he 
laughed, ''though I dinna mind sayin' that 
I've sometimes been a wee bit disappointed 
when somebody got better. On the other 
hand, when big Tamson was badly, I keepit 
prayin' that he wud get better." 

" An unbusinesslike thing to do,'' I laughed. 

**Aweel," said the joiner, ''big Tamson 
weighed aboot saxteen stone, and at the time 
I hadna the wood." 

" I dinna like to hear aboot things like 
that," said Jake Tosh nervously; "things 
like that give me the creeps, and besides it's 
no a proper way to speak." 

Dauvit turned to me. 

" Man, dominie, it's a queer thing, but 
the more religious a man is the less he likes 
to hear aboot death. Jake here is an elder 
o' the auld kirk ; he's on the straight and 
narrow path ; he's going straight to heaven 
when he dees .... and I never saw onybody 
so feared o' death as Jake is. How wud ye 
explain that ? " 



136 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

"I think," I replied, "that it is due to 
the fact that Jake has been brought up in 
the fear of the Ivord/' 

" Exactly," nodded Dauvit. '* It's my belief 
that most religious fowk are religious not 
becos they want specially to play harps in 
the next world, but becos they dinna want 
to be roasted." 

Dauvit' s philosophy comes pretty near that 
of Edmond Holmes. In What Is and What 
Might Be Holmes argues that our education 
system is founded on the Old Testament. 
Man is a sinner, prone to evil ; a stern angry 
God chastises him when he trangresses. Edu- 
cation treats children as sinners ; it punishes 
the wrongdoer. I believe Holmes is right, 
only he does not trace back education far 
enough. The God of the Old Testament was 
a man-made God (Jung says that man makes 
his God in his own image ; his God is his ego- 
ideal). 

The genesis of education is not the God of 
the Old Testament ; it is the unconscious 
wish of the primitive men who invented that 
God. The religion of the Old Testament is 
a father complex religion ; God is the hated 
and feared father, the authority who punishes, 
the provider of food and clothing, the maker 
of laws. Authority always makes the governed 
inferior and dependent ; the man with a 
father complex cannot stand alone ; he must 
always flee to his father or father substitute 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 137 

when he meets a difficulty. Thus does the 
Christian act ; he seeks the Father ; he places 
his burden on the lyord ; he avoids responsi- 
bility. The Hebraic religion and our modern 
education both demand that the individual 
shall avoid responsibility ; the good Christian 
and the good schoolboy must obey the lyaw. 
I think that if the world is to be free the church 
and the school must aim at breaking the 
power of the Father. 



" lyook here, Mac/' I said last night, " I 
am going to pay you for my board.'' 

Mac protested vigorous^. 

" You'll do nothing of the kind," he said 
firmly. 

I went to the kitchen and made the offer 
to his wife, and she also protested. 

This morning I cycled to Dundee and bought 
a knife-cleaner and a vacuum cleaner. They 
arrived to-night, and Mrs. Mac gave a gasp 
of delight. Mac tried to frown, but he could 
not manage it. Both protested against what 
they called my idiotic kindness, but their 
protests were half-hearted. 

It is a strange thing that money itself is 
considered a sordid thing. Why should Mac 
refuse five pounds with anger, and accept a 
ten pound gift with pleasure ? If anyone 
wants to study the psychological meaning 



138 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

of money I recommend Chapter Xly. in Dr. 
Ernest Jones' Psycho-analysis. In the uncon- 
scious, at any rate, money is assuredly ''filthy 
lucre." 

A teacher should know very little about 
the subject he professes to teach. In my 
lyondon school I succeeded a line of excellent 
teachers of drawing. I had not been long 
in the school when Di, aged 15, looked over 
my shoulder one day and said : *' Rotten ! 
You can't draw for nuts ! '' 

A week later Malcolm looked at a water 
colour of mine. 

** You've got a horrible sense of colour," 
he said brightly. 

Then I began to wonder why everyone in 
school was much more keen on drawing and 
painting than they had ever been in the days 
of the skilled teachers. The conclusion I came 
to was that my bad drawing encouraged the 
children. I remembered the beautiful copy- 
book headlines of my boyhood, and I recalled 
the hopelessness of ever reaching the standard 
set by the lithographers. No child should 
have perfection put before him. The teacher 
should never try to teach ; he should work 
alongside the children ; he should be a co- 
worker, not a model. 

Most teachers set themselves on a pedestal. 
They think that they lose dignity if they 
are not able to answer every question that 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 139 

a child puts to them. One result is that the 
child develops a dangerous inferiority com- 
plex. I knew one boy who was a dtiffer at 
mathematics. His weakness was due to the 
inferiority he felt when he saw the learned 
mathematical master juggle with figures as 
easily as a conjurer juggles with billiard balls. 
The little chap lost all hope, and when he 
worked problems he worked solely to escape 
punishment. 

The difficulty is that if a teacher works at 
a subject year after year he is bound to become 
an expert. The only remedy I can think 
of is to make each teacher take up a new 
subject at the beginning of every school year. 
By the time that he had been master of Mathe- 
matics, History, Drawing, English, French, 
German, L^atin, Geography, Chemistry, Phy- 
sics, Psychology, Physiology, Eurhythmies, 
Music, Woodwork, it would be time to retire 
.... with a pension or a psychosis. The 
late Sir William Osier said that a man was 
too old at forty ; my experience leads me 
to conclude that many a teacher is too old 
at twenty. 

I sometimes think that every man has 
a certain definite psychic age fixed for him 
by the Almighty before he is born. I know 
a man of seventy who is psychically five years 
old, and he will never grow older. I know 
a boy of ten who is psychically sixty years 
dold, an he will never grow younger. 



140 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

Psycho-analysis is doing a lot of good, but 
I fear that it may do a lot of harm, for, one 
fine day Professor Freud or Dr. Jung will 
get hold of Peter Pan, take him by the back 
of the neck, and say : '' My lad, youVe got 
a fixation somewhere; you are the super- 
regression-to-the-inf antile specimen ; you Ve got 
to be analysed/' And then Peter will grow 
up and read The Daily News and own an 
allotment and a season ticket. 

When we know all about psychology, the 
world will be rather dull. The Freudians 
have said that the play of Hamlet is the result 
of Shakespeare's (Edipus Complex. If Shake- 
speare had not had an unconscious hatred 
of his father, Hamlet would never have been 
written. In other words, if Bacon had dis- 
covered the psychology of the unconscious, 
Shakespeare might have been analysed and 
forthwith might have gone in for keeping 
bees instead of writing plays. 

It is the neurotic who leads the world ; 
he is a rebel and he is an ideahst. Yet when 
you analyse him you find what a poor devil 
he is. His noble crusade against vivisection 
is due to the abnormal strain of cruelty he 
is repressing in himself ; his passion for 
Socialism comes from his infant fear of and 
rebelHon against his father. ^ The ardent suffra- 
gette who smashes windows in a just cause 
is merely doing so because the vote is a sym- 
bol of freedom from an arrogant husband. 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 141 

What I want to know is this : In the year 
5000, when everyone is free from repressions 
and suppressions, will there be any rebels to 
spur humanity on ? But then if humanity 
is free from unconscious urges there will be 
no need for rebels, for there will be no crime 
or prison or wars or politicians. Every man 
will be a superman. 

I firmly beHeve that Freud's discovery will 
have a greater influence on the evolution of 
humanity than any discovery of the last 
ten centuries. Freud has begun the road 
that leads to superman, and, although Jung 
and Adler and others have begun to lead 
sideroads off the main track, the sideroads 
ire all leading forward. Theirs is a great 
nessage of hope. 

And yet, nineteen hundred years ago Jesus 
[Christ gave the world a New Psychology . . . 
md none of us have tried to apply it to our 
;ouls. 



VIII. 

MAC came across a vulgar word in a 
composition he was correcting to-night, 
and it seemed to alarm him. He could 
not understand why I laughed, and I explained 
to him that I liked vulgarity. 

I remember when a high-minded mother 
came into my class-room in Hampstead. The 
highest class was writing essays. On her asking 
what the subject was, I repHed that each 
pupil had a different subject. She walked 
round and looked over their shoulders. I 
saw the lady's eyebrows go up as she read 
titles such as these : — '* I Grow Forty Feet 
high in One Night '' ; "I Edit the Greenland 
Morning Frost " (the news this boy gave 
was deHghtful) ; "I Interview Noah for the 
Daily Mail** (photos on back page). She 
nodded approvingly when she read the titles 
of the more serious essays. Then I saw her 
adjust her spectacles in great haste ; she 
was looking over Muriel's shoulder. 

'' Mr. Neill/' she gasped, " do you think 
this a suitable subject for a girl ? " 

I glanced at the title ; it was : '' Auto- 
biography of My Nose.'' 

142 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 143 

" Er — what's wrong with it ? '' I said fal- 
teringly. 

"It lends itself too readily to vulgarity," 
she said. 

I picked up the book, and together we 
read the opening words. 

'' When first I began to run .... 

The high-minded lady left the room hur- 
riedly. 

I loved that class. Often I wish that I 
had kept their essays. One day we had a 
five minute essay on the subject : Waiting 
for My Cue. I^awrence wrote of standing 
on the steps in a cold sweat of fear. He had 
only five words to say — " The carriage 
waits, my lord,'' but he had never acted 
before. His cue was : '' Ho ! Who comes 
here ? " 

'' At last," he wrote, " I heard the fateful 
words : ' Ho ! Who comes here ? * I 
could not move ; I stood trembling on the 
stairs. 

'''Get on, you idiot!' whispered the stage 
manager savagely, but still I could not 
move. 

'' ' Ho ! Who comes here ? ' repeated the 
fool on the stage. Still I could not move a 
step. 

'' ' Ho ! Who comes here ? ' 

*' Suddenly I became aware of a disturbance 
in the auditorium. The noise increased, and 
then I heard the agonising words : ' Fire ! 



144 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

Fire I ' Panic followed, and cries of terror 
rang out. 

" But I ... I jumped on the stage and 
cried : ' Hurrah 1 Hoo-bHnking-rah ! ' It 
was the happiest moment of my Hfe." 

Sydney took a different line. Her cue was 
the sound of a stage kiss. Boldly she walked 
on, and the stage lovers glared at her, for 
she arrived before the kiss was finished or 
rather properly begun. The audience chuckled. 
At the next performance she determined to 
be less punctual. She heard the smack of 
the kiss, but she did not move. As she waited 
she heard the audience roaring with laughter, 
and then she reaHsed that the poor lovers 
had been standing kissing each other for 
a full five minutes. 

I must write to these dear old children 
to ask if they kept their essays. 



Duncan was in to-night, and he told a 
school story that was new to me. 

In a certain council school it was the 
custom for teachers to write down on the 
blackboard any instructions they might have 
for the janitor before they left at night. One 
n glit he came in and read the words : Find 
the L.C.M. 

'* Good gracious ! " he growled, " has that 
darn thing gone and got lost again ? ** 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 145 

That version was new to me. My own 
version ran thus : — 

lyittle WilHe is doing his home lessons, 
and he asks his father to help him with 
a sum. The father takes the slate in his 
hand and reads the words : Find the 
G.C.M. 

'' Good heavens ! " he cries, " haven't they 
found that blamed thing yet ? They were 
hunting for it when I was at school." 

I think both versions are very good. 



I have a strong Montessori complex. I 
find myself being critical of her system, and 
I have often wondered why. I used to think 
that my dislike of Montessori was a projection : 
I disHked a lady who raved about Montessori, 
and I fancied that I had transferred my dis- 
Hke of the lady to poor Montessori. But 
now I refuse to accept that explanation ; 
it is not good enough for me ; there must be 
something deeper. I shall try to discover 
that something deeper. 

When I first read Montessori 's books I 
said to myself : '' She is devoid of humour." 
This to me suggests a limitation in art, and 
I feel that Montessori is always a scientist 
but never an artist. Her system is highly 
intellectual, but sadly lacking in emotionalism. 
This is seen in her attitude to phantasy. She 



146 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

would probably argue that phantasy ivS bad 
for a child, but it is a fact that much of a 
child's hfe is lived in phantasy. Phantasy 
is a means of gratifying an unfulfilled wish. 
The kitchen-maid in her day-dream marries 
a prince, and, as Maurice Nicoll says in his 
Dream Psychology, to destroy her phantasy 
without putting something in its place is 
dangerous. 

To a child, as to Cinderella, phantasy is 
a means of overcoming reality. Father bullies 
WilHe and the boy retires into a day-dream 
world where he becomes an all-powerful person 
.... hence the fairy tales of giants (fathers) 
killed by httle Jacks. In later Hfe WilHe 
takes to drink or identifies himself with the 
hero of a cinema drama. 

The extreme form of phantasy is insanity, 
where the patient completely goes over to 
the unreal world and becomes the Queen of 
the World. And it might be objected that 
phantasying is the first stage of insanity. 
Yes, but it is the last stage of poetry. Cole- 
ridge's Kuhla Khan, one of the most glorious 
poems in the language, is pure phantasy. 
I rather fear that one day a grown-up Mon- 
tessori child will prove conclusively that the 
feet of Maud did not, when they touched 
the meadows, leave the daisies rosy. 

No, the Montessori world is too scientific 
for me ; it is too orderly, too didactic. The 
name " didactic apparatus " frightens me. 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 147 

I quote a sentence from The New Children, 
by Mrs. Radice. 

" ' Per carita ! Get up at once ! ' she (Mon- 
tessori) has exclaimed before now to a con- 
scientious teacher found dishevelled on the 
ground with a class of little Bolshevists sitting 
on top of her/' 

In heaven's name, I ask, why get up ? 
lyife is more than meat, and education is more 
than matching colours and fitting cylinders 
into holes. 

Montessori was thinking of the conscious 
mind of the child when she evolved her system, 
and the apparatus does not satisfy the whole 
of the child's unconscious mind. Noise is 
suppressed in a Montessori school, but every 
child should be allowed to make a noise, for 
noise means power to him, and he will use 
it only as long as it means power to him. 
I have watched Norman MacMunn's war or- 
phans at Tiptree Hall at work. MacMunn, 
the author of A Path to Freedom in the School, 
did not say '' Hush ! " ; his boys filled the 
room with noisy talk as they worked, and 
never have I seen children do more work 
with so much joy. 

The Montessori teacher, when she finds 
that Jimmy is interfering with the work of 
Alice, segregates the bad Jimmy, and treats 
him as a sick person. But the right thing 
to do is to solve Jimmy's problem as well 
as Alice's. What is behind Jimmy's aggres- 



148 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

siveness ? Jimmy does not know, nor does 
the Montessori teacher, because she has 
been trained in the psychology of the conscious 
only. 

Another reason why I am not w^holly on 
the side of Montessori is, I fancy, that her 
religious attitude repels me. She is a chuich 
woman ; she has a definite idea of right and 
wrong. Thus, although she allows children 
freedom to choose their ow^n occupations, she 
allows them no freedom to challenge adult 
morality. But for a child to accept a ready- 
made code of morals is dangerous ; education 
in morality is a thousand times more important 
than intellectual education with a didactic 
apparatus. 

H< H: H< H: 4: 4: 

To-night Duncan came in, and as usual 
we talked education. I took up the subject 
of punishment, and condemned it on the 
ground that it treats effect instead of cause. 
After a little persuasion Duncan seemed inclined 
to agree with me. 

'* I see what you mean,'' he said, " but 
what I say is that if you abolish punishment 
you must also abolish reward.'' 

'' Why not ? " I said. " The case against 
rewards is just as simple. A child should 
do a lesson for the joy of doing it. Milton 
certainly did not write Paradise Lost for the 
five pounds he got for it." 

" Yes, I see that," said Duncan thought- 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 149 

fully, *' but what about competition ? Tlie 
prize at the end introduces a breezy struggle 
for place/' 

I shook my head. 

*' No competition ! I won't have it. It 
makes the chap at the top of the class a prig, 
and gives the poor chap at the bottom an 
inferiority complex. No, we want to encourage 
not competition but co-operation. Competition 
leads naturally to another world war, as 
competition between British and American 
capital is doing now." 

Then Duncan floored me. 

" And would you discourage football because 
it introduces the idea of competition 1 " he 
asked. 

*' Of course not," I replied 

'' Then why discourage it in arithmetic ? " 
he asked. 

It was an arresting question, and I had 
to grope for an answer that would convince 
not only Duncan but myself. That every 
healthy boy likes to try his strength against 
his fellows is a fact that we cannot ignore. 
Mr. Arthur Balfour's desire to beat his golfing 
partner and Jock Broon's desire to spit farther 
than Jake Tosh are fundamentally the same 
desire, the desire for self-assertion. And I 
see that the man who comes in last in the 
quarter-mile race is in the same position of 
inferiority as the boy who is always at the 
bottom of the class. Yet I condemn com- 



150 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

petition in school -work while I appreciate 
competition in games. Why ? 

I think I should leave it to the children. 
Obviously they like to compete in games 
and races, but they have no natural desire 
to compete in lessons. It appears that some 
things naturally lend themselves to competi- 
tion — racing, boxing, billiards, jumping, foot- 
ball and so on. Other things do not encourage 
competition. Bernard Shaw and G. K. Chester- 
ton do not compete in the output of books ; 
Freud and Jung do not struggle to publish 
the record number of analysis cases ; George 
Robey and lyittle Tich do not appear together 
on the stage of the Palladium and try to prove 
which is the funnier. Rivalry there always 
is, but it remains only rivalry until The Daily 
Mail offers a prize for the biggest cabbage 
or sweet-pea, and then competition seizes 
suburbia. 

I should therefore leave the children to 
discover for themselves what interests lend 
themselves to competition, and what interests 
do not. I know beforehand that of their 
own accord they will not introduce it into 
school subjects. This is in accord with my 
views on the authority question. I insist 
that the teacher will impose nothing ; that 
his task is to watch the children find their 
own solution. 

:{: :{: Ht 4: ♦ 4: 

I must write down ^ wise saying that cam^ 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 151 

from Dauvit. A rambling and ill-informed 
discussion of Bolshevism arose in his shop 
to-night. Daiivit took no part in it, but 
when we rose to go he said : '' Tak' my word 
for it, Bolshevism is wrong/' 

'* How do you make that out, Dauvit ? " 
I asked. 

*' Because it's a success," he said shortly. 
^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ 

To-night the Rev. Mr. Smith, the U.F. 
minister, came in. He is one of the unco' 
guid, and to him all pleasures are sinful. It 
happened that I was telling Macdonald the 
Freudian theory of dreams when he entered, 
and when Mac told him what the conversation 
had been about, he begged me to continue. 
It was evident that he had never heard of 
dream interpretation, and he was surprised. 
'* And every dream has a meaning ? " he 
asked. 
" Yes," I said. 

" I had a dream last night,*' he began, 
but I held up a warning hand. 

*' You shouldn't tell your dreams in public," 
I said hastily ; '' they may give things away 
that you don't want others to know." 
He laughed. 

"I don't mind that," he said, ''I'll take 
the risk. I^ast night I dreamt that I was 
in a public-house among a lot of men who 
wer^ telling most obscene stories. According 



152 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

to Freud every dream is the fulfilment of a 
wish. Do you mean to tell me that I imsh 
to be in such a company ? '' 

I explained that the dream as told is not 
the dream in reality, the meaning Hes behind 
the symbolism, and it can be got at by the 
method of free association. I also explained 
that I did not believe the Freud theory, that 
the dream is always a wish, and suggested 
that Jung was a surer guide. 

" According to Jung," I said, " the dream 
is often compensatory. In your own case 
you are consciously livkig the higher life, 
but there is another side of life that you are 
ignoring, and that is the vulgar pub side. 
Your dream is a hint that the vulgar side 
of life cannot be ignored. You may ignore 
it consciously, but your unconscious wiJl seek 
the other side in your dreams.'' 

This seemed to make him think. 

*' But the saints and martyrs \" he cried. 
" Think of the thousands who crucified the 
flesh so that they might win the everlasting 
crown ! Do you tell me that they were all 
wrong ? '' 

I lit my pipe. 

" I think they were/' I said, ** for they 
merely repressed their animal life. They 
thought that they had conquered it, but they 
only buried it. The real saint is the man 
who faces his flesh boldly and loves it too, 
just as much as he loves his God." 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 153 

Then the minister fled. 

The interpretation of dreams is one of the 
most fascinating studies in the world. The 
method as evolved by Freud is simple, although 
the interpretation is anything but simple. 
Obviously the average dream has no meaning. 
You dream that a horse speaks to you, and 
then it turns into your brother. It is all 
nonsense, yet behind the nonsense is a serious 
meaning. Not long ago I was analysing a 
girl of sixteen. About a week after the analysis 
began she brought a dream which began 
thus : *' I am invisible, and I have a tail 
that I can take off or put on.'' 

Following the method of free association 
I said to her : " What comes into your mind 
about being invisible ? " 

'' Oh, iVe often wanted to be invisible, 
for then I could do what I liked ; then I would 
be free." 

Being invisible therefore meant being free. 

Then I asked her associations to the tail 
part. 

'' Tail monkeys at the Zoo ; they 

are poor things always kept behind bars. 
Just like me. I forgot to say that my tail 
wasn't on in the dream." 

Tail therefore meant something associated 
with confinement and restriction. It is sig- 
nificant that her tail was unattached. I took 
it to mean a wish-fulfilment dream ; in it she 
got free from her neurosis. 



154 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

The following night she dreamt that she was 
being driven in a motor car by a swanky 
chauffeur. They came to the bottom of a 
hill, and the car stopped, and she got out and 
walked. Her first association was : '* The 
chauffeur had a big green coat on, one just like 
the coat you wear.'' 

'' So I was the chauffeur ? " I asked. 

She brightened at once. 

" I see it ! '' she cried. *' The car is the 
analysis ; you are driving me awav from my 
old iife 1 " 

'' Excellent ! " I said, " but don't forget 
that the car stopped at the bottom of the hill. 
What does the word hill give you ? " 

*' Something difficult to cHmb. I hated 
climbing it and thought it a shame that the 
motor didn't take me up." 

" Well ? " 

'' I've got to cHmb to get better, haven't I ? " 

"That's right," I said. ''I told you the 
other night that no analyst should give advice, 
and I refused when 3^ou asked me for it. In 
your unconscious you realise that the chauffeur 
is not going to take you up the hill ; in 
other words you've got to do most of the 
work." 

Freud holds that there is a censor standing 
between the conscious and the unconscious. 
Primitive wishes seek to come from the un- 
conscious, but the censor holds up his hand. 
'• No," he says, '' that's too disgusting ; the 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 155 

conscious mind couldn't stand that ; it would 
be shocked. You must disguise 3^ourself in 
harmless form ! '' And so the infantile sex 
wish is changed into a harmless dog or cycle. 
But if this is the case why should my little girl 
dream of me as a chauffeur ? There was 
nothing disgusting about me, nothing that her 
conscious mind could not face. 

I prefer Jung's theory. He says that we 
dream in symbols because symbolism is the 
oldest language in the world, and, as the un- 
conscious is primitive it uses this language. 
We all dream of shocking things, and if the 
endopsychic censor were really on duty he 
would never allow these disgusting dreams to 
get through. 

If I dream that my father is dead the 
Freudians declare that I either wish or, in the 
past, have wished unconsciously for my father's 
death. But surely so alarming a wish would 
be changed into a harmless form if there were 
a censor. One night I dreamt that an acquain- 
tance, Murray, was dead. The first associa- 
tion to Murray was : " He's a lazy sort of chap." 
I think that all he stood for was laziness, 
and he was merely my own laziness symboHsed. 
The dream was a hint to me to be up and doing, 
for I had been neglecting a task that I should 
have undertaken. 

There is what might be called the cheese- 
and-tripe supper theory of the dream held by 
many people. 



156 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

" There's nothing in dreams/' they say, 
'* nothing but the disorders following late 
supper.'' 

A cheese-and-tripe supper will cause queer 
dreams, but the advocates of this theory can- 
not explain why a tripe supper should make 
me dream of — say — a tiger. Why not a lion 
or a mouse ? 

It is an accepted fact now in psychology 
that the dream is the working of the unconscious. 
Some theosophists claim that during sleep your 
spirit leaves your body and seeks the astral 
plane, but I have never seen anything resembling 
evidence of this. It may be a fact for all 
that. 

Concerning the prophetic aspect of dreams 
I know nothing. I have heard that the night 
before the Tay Bridge disaster a woman 
dreamt that it was to take place, and she per- 
suaded her husband not to travel by that ill- 
fated train, but I cannot vouch for the story. 
I believe, however, that the dream is prophetic 
in that the unconscious during the night is 
working out the problems of the next day. 
The popular saying about sleeping over a 
problem shows that there is a real beHef in 
this aspect. I know a lady who was under- 
going analysis. She was suffering from a father 
complex, that is, her infantile fixation on the 
father had remained with her, and uncon- 
sciously she was approving or disapproving 
ot every man she met according a,s he 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 157 

did or did not in some way resemble her 
father. 

For a few weeks after the analysis began 
she was always dreaming that she was back 
in her childhood home, and in her dreams she 
was always trying to get away from home and 
he: father was always restraining her from 
going. Often the figure in the dream was not 
the father, but the associations always showed 
that the figure was standing for the father. 
One night the figure was the King, and her first 
association was : '' The King's name is George. 
That's father's name too." 

This seems to be a case where the uncon- 
sc'ous is striving to find a solution. 

The way the unconscious does things is 
wonderful. I remember one night Hstening 
to a lecture by Homer lyane. He brought 
forward a new theory about education, and it 
was so deep that I did not quite grasp its 
meaning. At the time Alan, Homer I^ane's 
youngest child, was one of the pupils in 
the school in which I taught. That night I 
dreamt that I was standing before a class. 
Alan was sitting in the front seat, and behind 
him was a boy whom in the dream I called 
*' Homer I^ane's youngest child." The new 
theory had become in the language of sym- 

bohsmAlao's younger brother in short, 

lyane's latest. Here again I cannot see why 
any censor should change a theory into a child. 



158 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

In my Log 1 make a very, very poor state- 
ment about sex instruction. I say that chil- 
dren should be encouraged to believe in the 
stork theory of birth until the age of nine. 
That was a wrong belief, but then at that time 
I had not read Freud or Bloch or Moll. I 
see now that the child should be told the truth 
about sex whenever he asks for information. 
But I fear, that many modern mothers think 
that they have sexually educated their child 
when they tell him where babies come from. 
The physiological side of sex is the less impor- 
tant ; you can take a child through all the 
usual stages — polHnation of plants, fertihsation 
of eggs, right up to human birth, but the child 
will find no help in these informations when 
he faces his sex instinct at adolescence. Sex 
instruction should be psychological ; it should 
deal with the sex instinct as one form of life 
force or libido. The child should be led to face 
it openly. It should be entirely dissociated 
from sin, and moral lectures should not be 
given. 

Who is to give the instruction ? That is the 
difficulty. Most parents and teachers cannot 
do it because their own sex instinct is all wrong. 
Make a remark about sex in the company of 
adults, and it will be reacted to in two ways ; 
some will grin and laugh ; others will be shocked. 
I hasten to add that the shocked ones are worse 
than the laughers. The laugh is a release 
of sex repressions ; the shocked appearance 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 159 

is a compensation for an unconscious over- 
interest in sex. Anyway neither type is capable 
of talking about sex to children, and since 
humanity is roughly divided into prudes 
and sinners (not saints and sinners), there 
is Httle hope of a frank sex education for 
kiddies. 

Many people say : ''Oh, leave it to the 
doctors,'' but personally I haven't enough 
faith in doctors. Their attitude to sex is 
usually no better than the attitude of the lay- 
man. I know doctors who could give excellent 
instruction to children on the physiology of 
sex, but the only doctors of my acquaintance 
who could teach the psychological side are 
psycho-analysts or psycho-therapists of some 
sort. 

Teachers can tackle the sex problem nega- 
tively. Sex activity is a form of life force or 
interest, and if a child is not finding life in- 
teresting enough there is a danger that he will 
regress to what is called auto-eroticism. When 
we remember that the sexual instinct is the 
creative instinct, and that creation in dancing 
or music or poetry or art of any kind is sub- 
limated sex, that is sex raised to a higher 
power, we can readily see that one of the most 
important parts of a teacher's job is to provide 
ways and means for creation. I realise that 
this is not enough, but, as I say, I cannot 
see the way to a good sex education, 
until every teacher and parent has dis- 



i6o A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

covered his or her own sex complexes. 
Co-education helps, for then the comminghng 
of the sexes affords a harmless and unconscious 
outlet for sex interest. But co-education is 
no panacea, for the sex problems of the in- 
dividual child in a co-educational school are 
almost as immediate as those of the child from 
the segregated school. 



IX. 

THIS morning I was setting off for Dundee 
when Willie Marshall entered the com- 
partment. He was dressed in his Sunday 
best, and I wondered why he was going to Dundee 
on a Wednesday. 

'' Hullo, WiUie ! " I cried, " what's on to- 
day ? '' 

He looked troubled and angry. 

" I've been summoned to serve on the jury 
that's tryin' that dawmed rat that stailt ten 
pund frae the minister," he said viciously, 
" and I had Httle need to lose a day, for I hae 
far mair work than I can dae. Mossbank's 
twa cairts cam in yestreen, and he's swearin' 
like onything that he maun hae them by the 
nicht." WilHe is a joiner, and most of his 
work is building and repairing carts. 

" So you think that Nosie Broon is guilty ? " 
I said with a smile. 

" Of coorse he is," he cried with emphasis 

'' But," I said seriously, " you'll maybe 
alter your mind when you hear the evi- 
dence." 

He grunted. 

*' Dawn nae fear ! I'll show him that he's 

161 L 



i62 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

no to drag me awa frae ma work for 
nothing ! " 

He opened his Dundee Courier, and I sat 
and thought of the trial by jury method. 
I would not condemn it on the strength of 
Willie's dangerous misunderstanding of what 
it means, but I do condemn it on other grounds. 
Weighing evidence is a difficult enough busi- 
ness even for the specialist, for it is almost 
impossible to eliminate emotion in forming 
a judgment. With a jury of citizens, some of 
them possibly illiterate, too much depends 
on the advocates, or on outside causes. 

During the war there was a glaring instance 
of this. A soldier shot the man who had been 

trying to steal his wife's love and the 

verdict of the jury was Not Guilty. The 
emotional factor in this case was that the 
dead man was a German. I am not arguing 
that the prisoner should have been hanged 
or imprisoned, for I think both procedures 
are bad ; I merely point out that in the eyes 
of legalism the soldier was guilty, yet the jury 
threw legalism overboard. 

Another instance of the emotional factor 
over-ruling legalism is seen in the trial of the 
man who shot Jaures. He was acquitted. 

Not Guilty the man who 

slew one of the best men in Europe. On the 
other hand the youth who attempted to 
assassinate Clemenceau was sentenced to death, 
pardoned, and sent to penal servitude. In 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 163 

France therefore it is a crime to kill a politician 
of the right, but a virtue to kill one of the 
Socialist left. 

Abstract justice is a figment. No jury and 
no judge can be impartial. The other day a 
man was charged with striking a Socialist 
orator with an ice-pick. The judge lectured 
the orator on his Bolshevism, and then gave 
the accused imprisonment for a short term 
in the second division. Suppose that the 
Bolshevist had used an ice-pick on a Cabinet 
Minister ! 

I do not think that our judges and magistrates 
ever consciously show partiality. They are an 
upright class of men, men above suspicion. 
It is their unconscious that shows partiality, 
just as mine does. The army colonels who 
tried Conscientious Objectors were upright men, 
but it was wrong to imagine that they could 
possibly see the C.O/s point of view. So it 
was with the regtdar R.A.M.C. doctors. To 
some of them the neurotic patient was a 
swinger of the lead, a mahngerer. They had 
never heard of the new psychiatry, and the 
neurotic was a strange creature to them. 
Their ignorance supplemented their prejudice, 
and they could not possibly have treated these 
men with justice. 

The truth is that we all make up our minds 
according as our buried complexes impel us. 
If I saw a Frenchman fighting a Scot I should 
take the Scot's side, because I have a Scot 



i64 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

complex. Occasionally our complexes work 
in the opposite way. I fancy that the few 
people who sided with the Germans in the war 
were suffering from an " agin the government " 
complex, which, if you trace it deep enough 
is usually found to be an infantile rebellion 
against the father. In this case the State 
represented the father, and Germany was the 
outside helper who should conquer the father 
(or mother) country. Had Germany won, the 
unpatriotic man would immediately have 
turned his hate against Prussia, for then Prussia 
would have been the father substitute. 

Our loves and hates and fears are within 
ourselves. I know a man who has a nagging 
wife ; she has a constant wish for new things. 
He bought her a hat, and for two days she was 
happy ; then she nagged, and he bought her a 
dress. Three days later she demanded a neck- 
lace, and he gave her a necklace. He may 
continue giving her everything she asks for, 
but if he buys her a Rolls Royce and a house 
in Park Lane she will be a dissatisfied 
woman, for " the fault, dear Brutus, lies not 
in our stars but in ourselves.'' I advised 
him to spend his money on having her 
psycho- analysed. 



To-night Tammas lyownie the joiner came into 
Dauvit's shop. He is an infrequent attender 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 165 

at Dauvit's parliament, and Dauvit seemed 
slightly surprised at his entry. 

*' Weel, Tammas/' he said, " it's no often 
that we see 3^ou here. What's brocht ye here 
the nicht ? " 

Tammas spat in the grate, 

*' Oh, it was a fine nicht, and I thought I'd 
just tak a daunder yont," he said easily. 

Dauvit looked at him searchingly. 

*' Na, na, Tammas, it wdnna dae ! It wasna 
the fine nicht that brocht ye yont. YeVe 
got some news I'm thinkin'." 

Tammas laughed loudly. 

*' Dauvit, ye're oncanny ! " he cried. ** Ye 
seem to read what's at the back o' a man's 
heid. But I have nae news to gie ye." 

Dauvit chuckled. 

" I wudna wonder if ye didna come yont 
to tell me aboot the eldership," he said 
slowly. 

The expression on Tammas' s face showed 
that he had come to tell us that the minister 
had asked him to become an elder. 

** 'Od, Dauvit, noo that ye come to mention 
it I wud like to hear yer advice aboot the 
matter. I dinna see how I can tak an eldership, 
Dauvit." 

** How no ? " asked Dauvit in surprise. 
Then he added : " But maybe ye ken whether 
ye've got a sinfu' heart or no." 

'' It's no that," said Tammas hastily, '* I'm 
nae worse than some other elders I ken," and 



i66 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

he glanced at Jake Tosh. "No, it's no the 
sin I'm thinkin' o' ; it's my trade." 

*' But," I put in, ** why shouldn't a joiner 
be an elder ? " 

Tammas bit off a chunk of Bogie Roll. 

'* That may as may be, dominie, but I'm 
mair than a joiner ; I'm an undertakker." 

"Weel," said Dauvit, " what aboot that ? " 

Tammas shook his head sadly. 

'* An undertakker canna be an elder, Dauvit. 
Suppose the minister was awa preachin' or 
at the Assembly, and ane o' his congregation 
was deein', me as an elder micht hae 
to ging to the bedside and offer up a bit 
prayer." 

'' There's nothing in that," said Jake proudly ; 
"I've offered up a bit prayer afore noo when the 
minister was awa." 

" Aye, Jake," said Tammas, " but ye see 
you're a roadman. But an undertakker is a 
different matter. Goad, lads, I canna gie a 
man a bit prayer at sax o'clock and 
syne measure him for his cofhn at acht. 
That wud look like mixin' religion wi' 
business." 

The assembly thought over this aspect. 

"All the same," said the smith, "Dr. 

Hall is an elder, and naebody ever thinks o' 

accusin' him o' mixin' religion wi' his business." 

We all considered this statement. 

" Tammas," said Dauvit, "if ye want to be 

an elder tak it, and never mind the under- 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 167 

takkin*. But if ever ye have to gie a prayer 
just get Jake here to tak on the job." 

He began to laugh here. 

** I mind o' Jeemie Ritchie when he got his 
eldership. The minister gaed awa to the 
Assembly in Edinbro, and as it happened auld 
Jess Tosh was deein', so Jeemie was asked to 
come up and gie her a prayer. Jeemie was 
in my shop when the lassie Tosh cam for him, 
and I never saw a man in sic a state. 

" ' Dauvit/ he cries, ' 1 canna dae it ! I 
never offered up a prayer in my life ! ' 

" ' Hoots, Jeemie/ says I, ' it's easy ; just 
bring in a few bitties frae the Bible.' 

*'Auld Jeemie he scarted his heid. 

" ' Man, Dauvit,' says he, ' I cudna say 
twa words o' the Bible.' 

'' Weel-a-weel, I had to shove him oot o' the 
shop, and I tell ye, boys, he was shakin' like 
a shakky-trummly. 

"Weel, in aboot half-an-hour Jeemie cam 
back, and he was smilin' like onything. 

** ' Hoo did ye get on ? ' I speered. 

" ' Graund ! ' he cried, * she was deid 

afore I got there 1 ' " 



When I published my Log a correspondent 
wrote accusing me of being disloyal to my 
colleagues in the teaching profession. 

** Where is your profCvSsional etiquette ? " 
he wrote. 



i68 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

I had lots of letters from teachers, some 
flattering, some not. One man wrote me from 
Croydon : — 

*' Dear Sir, — Are you a fool or merely a 
silly ass ? '* 

*' Both/' I replied, " else I should not have 
paid 2d. for your letter/' 

In haste the poor man hastened to forward 
two penny stamps, and to apologise for not 
having stamped the letter he sent me. 

" 1 really thought that I had stamped it," 
he wrote. 

Then I wrote him a nice letter telling him 
that the mistake was mine, for his first letter 
had had a stamp on it after all. He never 
replied to that, and I suppose that now he 
goes about telling his friends that I am a fool, 
a silly ass, and a typical Scot. 

Authors hear queer things about themselves. 
The other day a friend of mine asked for my 
Log in a West End library. As the librarian 
handed over the book she shook her head 
sadly. 

*' Isn't it sad about the man who wrote that 
book ? " she said. 

My friend was startled. 

'* Sad ! What do you mean ? " 

" Oh, haven't you heard ? " asked the 
librarian in surprise ; " he's a confirmed drun- 
kard now." 

" Impossible ! " cried my friend, *' with 
whisky at ten and six a bottle ! " 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 169 

But I meant to write about colleagues. 

One day a class was holding a self-govern- 
ment meeting, and they sent for me. I was 
annoyed because I was having my after-dinner 
smoke in the staff -room. However I went 
up. 

" Hullo ! " I said as I entered, " what do 
you want ? " 

Eglantine the chairman said : ** A member 
of this class has insulted you." 

" Impossible ! " I cried. 

Then Mary got up. 

*' I did,'' she blurted out nervously ; ** I 
said you were just a silly ass.'' 

" That's all right ! " I said cheerfully, " I 
am," and I made for the door. Then the class 
got excited. 

" Aren't you going to do anything ? " asked 
Ian in surprise. 

"Good Lord, no ! " I cried. " Why should I ? " 

** You're on the staff," said Ian. 

" lyook here," I said impatiently, " I hereby 
authorise the crowd of you to call me any name 
you like." 

The class became indignant. 

** You can't criticise the staff," said one. 

" Why not ? " I asked, and they looked at 
each other in alarm. This was carrying self- 
government too far. 

Suddenly Mary jumped up. 

*' Then if we can criticise the staff here goes ! 
I accuse Miss Brown of favouritism." 



170 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

It was a bombshell. Everyone jumped up, 
and some cried : '' Shame ! Withdraw ! " The 
chairman appealed to me. 

** I have nothing to do with it," I protested. 

Then bitter words flew. They told me that 
I, as a member of the staff, should squash 
Mary. Voices became louder, but then the 
bell rang and the class had to go to its own 
class-room to work. 

My colleagues when they heard the story 
agreed with the children ; they held that I acted 
wrongly in listening to an accusation against 
a colleague. My argument was that I was a 
guest at a meeting ; I had no vote, nor would 
I have interfered had I been a member of 
the meeting. I was quite sure that if the bell 
had not broken up the meeting somebody 
would have made the discovery that Miss Brown 
was the proper person to make the accusation 
to. When they thought that Mary insulted 
me they sent for me, and I fully expected they 
would send for Miss Brown. Again I argued 
that if Miss Brown had favourites the class had 
a right to criticise her. If she had no favourites 
let her arraign the class before a meeting 
of the whole school and accuse them of libel. 

Ivooking back I still think my attitude was 
right, for unless the staff can lay aside all 
dignity and become members of the gang 
education is not free. Yet I see now that I 
was secretly exulting in the discomfiture 
of a colleague a common human 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 171 

failing which none of us care to recognise in 
ourselves. It is a sad fact but a true one that 
however much Dr. A. protests when a patient 
tells him that Dr. B. is a clumsy fool, un- 
consciously at least Dr. A. is gratified at the 
criticism of his rival. Psycho-analysts, that 
is people who are supposed to know the con- 
tents of their unconscious, are just as guilty 
in this respect as other doctors, and if anyone 
doubts this let him ask a Freudian what he 
thinks of the Jungian in the next street. 

My earliest memory of professional jealousy 
goes back to the age of seven. I lived next 
door to a dentist, a real qualified I/.D.S. Across 
the street lived a quack dental surgeon. When 
trade was dull these two used to come to their 
respective doors and converse with each otheJ^ 
in the good old simple way of putting the 
fingers to the nose. They never spoke to each 
other. lyife in a northern town was simple 
in these days. 



Helen Macdonald is four years old, and her 
mother and I have some breezy discussions 
about her upbringing. Mrs. Mac has a great 
admiration for her own mother, and she is 
bent on bringing up her daughter in the way 
that she was brought up. 

" Mother made me obey and I'll make Helen 
obey," she said to-day with decision. 

** It's dangerous/' I said. 



172 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

" No it isn't ; it worked well enough in my 
case anyway." 

*' Don't blow your own trvunpet, madam ! " 

She smiled. 

" I don't think I am a bad product of 
the good old way/' she said with a self- 
satisfied air. 

** Madam, shall I tell you the truth about 
yourself ? " 

She bubbled and drew her chair closer to 



mme. 

ft T-\_ I >> 



Do ! " she cried, and then added : " But 
I won't believe the nasty bits." 

Mac chuckled. 

" To begin with," I said pompously, ** you 
are an awful example of a bad education." 

She bowed mockingly and Mac guffawed. 
He is a wee bit afraid of his wife and he marvels 
at my courage in ragging her. 

*' You," I continued, *' were made to obey 
as a child, and as a result you became dependent 
on your mother. In short you are your own 
mother." 

'' Don't be silly," she said with a frown ; 
'* I want your serious opinion." 

" And you are getting it," I replied. " Be- 
cause you had to obey you never lived your 
own life, and naturally you never had a mind 
of your own. To this day you act as your 
mother acted. She made her daughter obey ; 
you follow her example ; she made scones in 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 17? 

such and such a way ; you make scones ir 
exactly the same way/' 

" That's right ! " laughed Mac. 

Mrs. Mac looked thoughtful. 

*' Anyway," she said quickly, " they are 
excellent scones." 

'' Most excellent scones," I hastened to add, 
" but my point is that if we all follow our 
parents there will be no progress." 

*' Progress will never bring better scones," 
said Mac and he patted his wife's cheek. 

'* Mac," I said gallantly, " your wife has 
brought scones to their perfect and utmost 
evolution. She has made the super-scone. 
Only, Helen isn't a scone you know." 

At this point Helen was found trying to 
pull the marble clock down from the 
mantlepiece. Her mother rescued the clock 
as it was falling, and she scolded the fair 
Helen. 

'* You are all theory," she cried to me. 
" What would you do in a case like this ? " 
^'^- - Same as you did," I answered hastily, 
and then added : '' Only I would try to give 
her so many interesting things to play with 
that she'd forget to want the clock." 

Then Mrs. Mac indignantly dragged out 
Helen's toys from a cupboard. 

'' Dozens of them ! " she cried, '' and she 
is tired of every one." 

Then I discoursed on toys. The toys of 
the world are nearly all bad. Helen has a 



174 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

beautiful sleeping doll that cost five pounds ; 
rather I should say that Helen had a beautiful 
vSleeping doll that cost five pounds. On the 
one occasion that Helen was allowed to play 
with it she made a careful attempt to open the 
head with a pair of scissors to see what made 
the eyes close and open. Then her mother 
put the doll in a box, packed the box in a trunk, 
and explained to Helen that the doll was to 
lie in that trunk until Helen had a little baby 
girl of her own. 

I explained to Mrs. Mac that the toy a child 
needs is one that will take to pieces. Every 
toy should be a mine of discovery. The only 
good toys that I know of are Meccano and 
Primus, but there is much need for construc- 
tive toys for younger children. 

" Mac/' I said, " if you were even a passably 
good husband you would be making Montessori 
apparatus for your offspring.'' 

We have many arguments like this. Mrs. 
Mac's problem is that of a million mothers ; 
she has to fit the child into an adult environ- 
ment. Yesterday she was painting in oils. 
The baker whistled outside and she ran out 
to get the bread. On her return she found that 
Helen was busily painting the pink wall-paper 
a Prussian blue. 

Wealthy mothers solve the problem by em- 
ploying nurses, but the solution is a poor one. 
Few nurses know enough about children, and 
many do positive harm by frightening the child. 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 175 

Nor can the hired nurse give the infinite 
amount of love that a child demands. If 
she could it is probable that she would be 
sacked, for no mother likes to see her child 
lavish his love on another. On more than 
one occasion I have discovered that the parents 
of children who loved me were hostile to me. 
That is natural. If a father is continually 
hearing his daughter say : '' Mr. Neill says 
this ; Mr. Neill says that/' I have every sym- 
pathy with him when he growls : *' Damn 
this Neill blighter ! " On the other hand I 
have no sympathy with him if he expects 
me to ask his little Ada how her dear charming 
papa is. 



A book of ten volumes might well be written 
on the subject of parents and teachers. If a 
teacher were the author no publisher would 
look at it, for the language would be un- 
printable. 

To the teacher the parent is an enemy. 
When Mrs. Brown comes to school she and the 
dominie chat pleasantly about the weather, 
while the children look on and marvel. lyittle 
Willie is amazed to see his mother smile as 
she talks, for it was only last night that he 
heard her say : " That Mr. vSmith is by no 
means a gentleman. Did you see his nails ? " 
Poor little Willie does not know that his 
mother and the dominie are using fair smiles 



176 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

to cover a real hostility. Mrs. Brown will 
talk agreeably all through her visit, but as she 
is shaking hands on the doorstep she will say, 
*' Oh, by the way, Mr. Smith, Willie came home 
last night saying that he wasn't allowed to 
play hockey yesterday''. I want him to play 
every Wednesday.'' 

'' But," says Mr. Smith deferentially, " I— 
er — well, Wednesday is the day when the 
Seniors play, and — er — since Willie is a Junior 
I— er— I— " 

" Oh, thank you so much," she gushes, 
*' I knew that you would arrange that he will 
play on Wednesdays," and she sails away. 

Or perhaps Mrs. Brown will put it on to her 
husband. 

" The way things are done at that school 
are disgraceful, Tom. You must go and see 
Smith and insist that the boy has his hockey." 

Well, the poor father comes up to school, 
and he and the dominie discuss the weather 
and lyloyd George. All the time Brown is 
trying to muster up enough courage to tackle 
the hockey question. 

" Er," he begins after clearing his throat, 
'* my w4fe was saying something about — er — 
what a splendid view you have from here ! " 

" First rate," nods the dominie. '' Your 
wife was saying ? " 

" Er — something about hockey." He coughs. 

'* Splendid game ! I — er — I must go 

er — good-bye." 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 177 

No mere man can badger a dominie. 

From the parent's point of view a teacher 
is a rival when he isn't a sort of under-gardener. 
The parent would never think of arguing with 
the doctor when he says that Wilhe has measles ; 
the doctor is a specialist in disease, and the 
parent is not. But it is different with the 
dominie. He is a speciaHst in education, but 
then so is the parent. That is possibly one 
of the reasons that the teaching profession 
is such a low-class one, for a teacher is merely 
a specialist in a world of specialists. Every- 
body knows how a child ought to be brought 
up. In justice to parents I must confess that 
there are only two teachers in Britain to whom 
I should trust the education of any child of 
mine. Most teachers are instructionists only, 
and the parent has some ground for suspicion. 



X. 

DUNCAN was talking about awkward 
moments to-night, and he told of the 
shock he got when he joined the army 
and found that the sergeant of his squad was 
an old pupil of his. 

*' I think I can beat that, Duncan,*' I said, 
and told him the story of an army lecture. 
I had a commission in the R.G.A. for a short 
time, and one morning I had to give a lecture 
to the men of the battery on lines of fire. 
They were mostly miners, and I tried to make 
the lecture as simple as possible. I began 
with the definition of an angle and went on 
to circular measurement. I noticed that one 
man stared at the blackboard in bewilderment, 
a very stupid looking fellow he was. When the 
lecture was over I approached him. 

'' I don't think you understood what I was 
trying to tell you," I said. 

'' I did have some difficulty in following it, 
sir," he said. 

" H'm ! What were you in civil Hfe ? " 

'' Mathematical master in a secondary school, 
sir." 

I could not rise to the occasion. I fled to 
the mess and ordered a brandy and soda. 

178 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 179 

Speaking about rising to the occasion brings 
to my mind another army incident in which 
I did not shine. I was a recruit in the infantry, 
and a gym sergeant was putting us through 
physical jerks. He told us the familiar tale 
that although we had broken our mothers' 
hearts we wouldn't break his ; in short he 
put the wind up us. I got very nervous. 

" Right turn ! '' he roared, and I thought 
he said *' Right about turn." 

He told the squad to stand easy, and then 
he eyed me curiously. 

" You ! Big fellow ! Take that smile off 
your face ! " 

I don't know why he said that for I couldn't 
have smiled at that moment for an3i:hing 
less than my ticket. He studied me care- 
fully for a bit, then enlightenment seemed to 
dawn on him. 

'* I got it ! '' he exclaimed triumphantly. 
*' I know wot's wrong with you ! You've 
got a stupid face ; you can't think ; you never 
thought in yer Hfe/' 

I looked on the ground. 

*' Did yer ever think in yer hfe ? " 

" No, sergeant,'' I said humbly. 

*' I bHnkin' well thought so ! " he said and 
moved away. 

Then the worm turned. Who was he that 
he should bully a scholar and a gentleman ? 
I would lower him to the dust. 

" Sergeant ! " 



i8o A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

He turned quickly. 

" Wot d ye want ? " and he tried to freeze 
me with his look. 

*' It isn't my fault I can't think, sergeant ; 
I was unfortunate enough to spend five years 
at a university.'' 

His mouth gaped, and his eyes stared, 
but only for a moment. Then he rose to the 
occasion. 

'* I blinkin' well thought so ! " he cried. 
" Squad I Tshun ! " 



It is Sunday night, and I have just been to 
town. At the Cross I stood and hstened to 
a revivahst bellowing from a soap-box. His 
message was Salvation but I was more interested 
in the man than his message. Consciously 
he is out to save sinners, but I suspect that 
unconsciously he is out to draw attention 
to himself. I do not blame him. I do the 
same thing when I publish a book ; Lloyd 
George and George Robey and the revivalist 
and I are all striving each in his little corner to 
draw attention to ourselves. 

The exhibition impulse is in every child. 
A child loves to run about naked, but then 
society in the form of the mother steps in 
and says : " You must not do that ! " But 
we know that every wish lives on in the depths 
of the mind, and the childish wish to exhibit 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT i8i 

the body appears in later years as a desire to 
preach or sing or act or lecture. 

This is the psychology of the testimonials 
for Hver pills which appear in every local 
paper. It is the psychology of much crime. 
Many a slum youth glories in having been 
birched, simply because his gang looks on him 
as a hero. 

I hasten to state that exhibitionism alone 
does not make a Cabinet IMinister or a comedian. 
There are other motives from infancy, an 
important one being the desire for power. I 
recall that as a boy I delighted in following 
a drove of cattle and smiting the poor creatures 
hard with a cudgel. Freud would say that in 
this way I was releasing sex energy, but I 
think that the infantile sense of power was at 
the root of my cruelty ; here was I, a wee boy, 
controlling a big heavy stot. It is love of 
power that makes little boys want to be engine- 
drivers. 

To the teacher this love of power is the most 
vital thing in a child's m.ake-up. Discipline 
thwarts the boy at every turn, and our adult 
authority is fatally injuring the boy's character. 
Our task is to provide the child with oppor- 
tunity to wield his power. We suppress it 
and the lad shows his power in destructive 
instead of constructive activities. I find that 
I keep returning to this subject ot suppression, 
but it is the most important evil in education. 
It does not matter how perfect a teacher makes 



i82 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

his instruction in arithmetic ; if he has not come 
to see that suppression of a child is a tragedy, 
his instruction is of no value. From an examina- 
tion point of view, yes ; from a spiritual point 
of view, no. 



Parents and teachers fail because they can- 
not see the world as the child sees it. The 
child of three is a frank egoist. He cares for 
no one but himself, and the world is his. 
Anger him and he would have you drawn 
and quartered if he had the power. His 
instincts prompt him to master his environ- 
ment, and to begin with, when he is a few weeks 
old, his environment and his own person are 
indistinguishable. 

Homer Lane gives a dehghtful description 
of the child's first efforts and how they are 
frustrated by ignorant adults. 

"At a very early age the child becomes 
aware through various processes that his own 
hand which he has seen moving across his 
Hne of vision is a part of himself, and that he 
can move it himself. He has discovered power. 
He then enters upon his career. The same 
motive that will govern his behaviour for the 
rest of his Hfe comes into operation, and he 
wants to use this new-found power for some 
purpose that will increase his enjoyment of 
life. Up to this time he has had only one 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 183 

pleasure, and that was to do wdth the com- 
missariat. Having discovered power over his 
fist he therefore wants to put it in his mouth 

a difficult task requiring much practice 

and patient perseverance. 

''As he goes on working he learns that his 
power increases with effort, and now his motive 
is modified. At first it was purely materiaHstic ; 
he wanted to have his fist in his mouth. Now 
he wants to put it there. His interest is in 
doing the thing rather than in having it. 

''This is the spiritual element in his present 
desire, and now comes the first mistake in 
education. Tht mother, analysing the be- 
haviour of the child, has noticed his complaint 
at the difficulty of the task as fatigue sets in, 
and, misunderstanding the motive of the child 
she helps him to put his fist in his mouth. 
But that is just what the child did not want, 
and he protests violently against this inter- 
ference with his purpose in fife. 

" The mother again makes a false analysis 
of the situation, and concludes that his protest 
is the result of his disappointment that there is 
no nourishment in the fist. She then gives him 
food or paregoric, whatever may be her method 
of deaHng with the spiritual unrest of her child, 
and thus drugs his creative faculties." 

I have said that the infant is an egoist. 
If his egoism is allowed full scope he will enter 
upon the next stage of life, the self-assertive 
stage, with a huge capacity for being altruistic. 



i84 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

This stage comes on about the age of six or 
seven. But if the child has had parents who 
believe in moulding character he will have 
had many severe lectures about his selfishness. 
These lectures will not have cured his selfishness ; 
they will have driven it underground for the 
moment. The selfishness of adults is one 
result of the moral lecture in childhood, for 
no wish or emotion will remain buried for 
ever. 

The age of self-assertion is the rowdy age, 
and naturally it is now that father uses his 
authority. The child is still ego-centric, but 
in a different way. At the age of three he was 
the king of the world ; at the age of seven he 
is the king of the other boys who play with 
him. He is now reckoning with society, and 
he uses society as a background against which 
he may play the hero. Thus be bleeds Jack's 
nose for no reason in the world other than that 
he thus asserts himself. If he plays horses 
with the boy next door he insists upon being 
the driver. 

It is at this period that he should be free 
from authorit3^ If authority in the shape 
of father or teacher or poHceman steps in to 
suppress his self-assertion the boy becomes an 
enemy of all authority and very often anti- 
social. The " rebel " in the Socialist camp is a 
good specimen of the man whose self-assertive 
period was injured by authority, and I suspect 
that the truculent drunk is letting off the steam 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 185 

that he should have let o£f at the age of 
eight. 

The third stage in the evolution of a child 
is the adolescent stage. For the first time the 
boy becomes a unit in society. Hitherto he 
has played for his own hand ; his games have 
been games in which personal prowess was the 
desired aim. Now he feels that he is one of a 
team. Even before puberty the team- 
forming impulse is seen ; Puffer, for instance, 
in The Boy and his Gang, gives ten to sixteen 
as the gang age. 

These divisions are purely arbitrary, and 
children differ much in evolution. The teacher, 
however, should have a general knowledge 
of these three phases. I have often seen a 
school prescribe cricket or hockey for boys 
who are still in the self-assertive stage. The 
result was that, having no team impulse, 
each boy had no further interest in the game 
when the umpire shouted : *' Out ! " 

I used to umpire for boys and girls of eight 
to eleven, and it was a tiresome business. 
Quite often when a boy had been bowled with 
the first ball, he would throw down the bat in 
disgust and refuse to give the other side an 
innings. There was nothing wrong with the 
children ; what was wrong was that a team 
phase game was being forced on a self-assertive 
phase group. 

♦ :i: 4c ♦ « 4^ 

. Duncan and two other dominies were in 



i86 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

to-night and we got on to golf yarns. I re- 
marked that there were very few good ones, 
and they all trotted out their favourites. I 
liked Duncan's best. 

An oldish man was ploughing his way to the 
tenth hole at vSt. Andrews, and, when he 
ultimately holed out in nineteen, he turned to 
his caddie. 

" Caddie,'' he cried in disgust, *' this is the 
worst game I ever played." 

The caddie stared at him open-mouthed. 

"So ye have played afore, have ye ? " he 
gasped in amazement. 

Why are there no cricket or football stories, 
I wonder ? Possibly because they are team 
games ; a team is a crowd, and I never heard 
of a joke against a crowd. A crowd is an 
impersonal thing, and no one can joke about 
an impersonal thing. I never heard of a joke 
about the moon or a turnip. Yet are there 
not jokes against a nation, and a nation is a 
crowd ? Take the joke about the Scot who 
was brought up at Bow Street for being drunk 
and disorderly. The magistrate, before pass- 
ing sentence, asked the accused if he had 
anything to say for himself. 

*' Weel, ma lord, it was like this. I travelled 
frae Glesga to I^ondon yesterday, and I got 
into bad company in the train." 

" Bad company ? " 

*' Aye, ma lord. When I got into the train 
at Glesga Central I had twa bottles o' whuskey 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 187 

in my bag, and a the other men 

in my compartment was teetotal." 

That looks like a joke against a long-suffering 
race, but is it so in reahty ? Make the traveller 
an * Oodersfield ' man on his way to see the 
Cup-tie Final at Chelsea, and it is not changed 
in essence. Only it has become a convention 
that the Scot is a hard drinker. It is the per- 
sonal touch that makes the joke, and it is the 
individual that we laugh at. 

I presume that the typical joke about Scots' 
meanness appeals to Englishmen because Eng- 
lishmen are mean themselves. No joke appeals 
to a man unless it releases some repressed 
wish of his own. No one expects a devout 
Roman Catholic to see the point of a joke 
about extreme unction. The professional come- 
dian to be a success must know what the crowd 
repressions are. Dickens is a great himiorist 
because he knew by intuition what the crowd 
would laugh at. And that brings me to the 
subject of human types. 

Broadly speaking there are two types of 
man. One is called an extrovert (Latin, 
to turn outwards) ; he identifies himself with 
the crowd, and he lives the life of the crowd. 
Ivloyd George and Horatio Bottomley are typical 
extroverts ; they seem to know instinctively 
what the crowd is thinking, and unconsciously 
they speak and act as the crowd wants them to 
speak and act. Dickens was another, and 
that is why he has so universal an appeal. 



i88 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

The other type, the introvert type, turns 
inward. They do not identify themselves with 
the crowd. What the public wants does not 
concern them ; they give the crowd what they 
think it ought to want. This class includes 
the thinkers, the men who are in advance of 
their time. An introvert is never popular 
with the crowd because the crowd never 
understands him. He can never get away 
from himself, and he sums up events according 
to the personal effect they have on himself. 
Yet to the unconscious of the introvert crowd 
opinion is of the greatest importance. 

In the realm of humour the extrovert is a 
success ; what amuses him amuses the crowds. 
But the introvert laughs alone, and in some 
cases he decides that the crowd has no sense 
of humour, and he becomes a cynic. 

It is necessary that the teacher should be able 
to recognise the different types . The extrovert 
is popular ; he it is who leads the gang. Doubts 
and fears do not trouble him ; life is pleasant 
and he laughs his way through it. But the 
introvert is the boy who stands apart in a 
corner of the playground ; he is timid and 
fears the rough and tumble of team games. 
He feels inferior and he turns in upon himself 
to find superiority. Thus he will day-dream 
of situations in which he is a hero like David 
Copperfield when he stood at Dora's garden 
gate and saw himself rescuing her from the 
burning house. 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 189 

I think that the job of the teacher is to help 
each type to a position midway between intro- 
version and extroversion. The boy who lives 
in the crowd might well be tempted to take 
more interest in his own individuality, and the 
introvert might well be encouraged to project 
his emotions outward. 



To-night Mac told me a story about old Simp- 
son the dominie over at Pikerton. I^ast sum- 
mer an English bishop was touring vScotland, 
and one morning he drove up to Simpson's 
school in a big car, flung open the door and 
walked in. 

*' Good morning, children," he cried. 

The bairns sat gazing at him in awe. He 
turned to Simpson. 

*' My good sir,'* he protested, ** when I 
enter a village school in England, the children 
all rise and say : ' Good morning, sir ' ! " 

*' Possibly," said Simpson dryly, " but in 
Scotland children are not accustomed to see 
strangers walk into a school. Scots visitors 
always knock at the door and await the head- 
master's invitation to enter." 



Mac and I were talking about education 
to-night. 
"* I never heard you mention the teaching 



igo A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

side of education/' he remarked. *' Giving 
a child freedom isn't enough, you know. 
What about History and Geography and so on?" 

'' I think they are jolly well taught in many 
schools, Mac," I said. '* It is the psycholo- 
gical vside of education that is a thousand years 
behind the times." 

'* Yes/' said Mac doubtfully, " but suppose 
you have a school of your own, I presume 
you'd teach the English yourself ? " 

I nodded. 

'' How would you do it ? " 

I thought for a while. 

" I'd reverse the usual process, Mac," I 
said. * ' Usually the teacher begins with Chaucer 
and works forward to Dickens ; I would begin 
with Comic Cuts and Deadwood Dick and work 
back to Chaucer." 

''Oh, do be serious for once," he sajd im- 
patiently. 

*' I am quite serious, Mac," I said. *' The 
only thing that matters in school work is 
interest, and I know from experience that the 
child is interested in Comic Cuts but not in the 
Canterbury Tales. My job is to encourage 
the boy's interest in Comic Cuts.'* 

1 ignored Macdonald's reference to idiocy, 
and went on. 

** You see, Mac, what you do is this : you 
see a boy reading Deadimod Dick, and you 
take his paper away from him and possibly 
whack the little chap for wasting his time. 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 191 

But you don't kill his interest in penny dread- 
fuls, and the result is that in later years he 
reads the Sunday paper that supplies the most 
lurid details of murders and outrages. My 
way is to encourage the lad to devour tales 
of blood and thunder so that in a short time 
blood and thunder have no more interest 
for him. The reason why most of the litera- 
ture published to-day is tripe is that the public 
likes tripe, and it likes tripe because its in- 
fantile interest in tripe was suppressed in 
favour of Chaucer and Shakespeare." 

" But,'' cried Mac, " isn't Shakespeare better 
for him than tripe ? " 

** Yes and no. If every poet were a Shake- 
speare the world would be a dull place ; you need 
the tripe to form a contrast. The best way 
to enjoy the quintessence of roses, Mac, is to 
take a walk through the dung-heaps first." 

*' What books would you advise your pupils 
to read ? " asked Mac. 

** In their proper sequence Comic 

Cuts, Deadwood Dick, John Bull, Answers^ 
Pearson's Weekly, Boy's Own Paper, Scout, 
Treasure Island, King Soloinons Mijies, While 
Fang, The Call of the Wild, The Invisible Man, 
practically anything of Jack lyondon, Rider 
Haggard, Conan Doyle, Kipling." 

** And serious literature ? " 

*' All literature is serious, Mac.'' 

" I mean Dr. Johnson, Swift, Bunyan, IViilton, 
Dry den, and that lot," said Mac. 



iq2 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

I smiled. 

** Mac, I want you to answer this question : 
have you read BoswelFs Life of Johnson?'* 
** Extracts/' he admitted awkwardly. 
*' Bunyan's Life and Death of Mr. Badman ? " 
" No." 
" Milton's Areopagitica ? " 

* Er— no." 

* Swift's Tale of a Tub?*' 
*' No." 

I sighed. 

*' Would you Hke to read them ? " I asked- 

" I don't think they would interest me," 
he admitted. 

'* Then in heaven's name, why expect chil- 
dren to have any interest in them ? If these 
classics weren't shoved down children's throats 
the adult population of this country would be 
sitting of an evening reading and enjoying 
Milton instead of John Bull'' 

Mac would not have this. 

*' Children must read the classics so that they 
may get a good style," he said. 

" Style be blowed ! " I cried. " The only 
way to get a style is by writing. Mac, I should 
cut out all the lectures about Chaucer and 
Spenser and Shakespeare, and let the children 

write during the English period if I 

had periods, which I wouldn't. I don't want 
style from kiddies ; I want to see them create 
in their own way. If they are free to create 
they will form their own style." 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 193 

In a conversation one always has a tendency 
to overstate a case, and as the argument went 
on I found myself saying wild things. Writing 
calmly now I still hold to my attitude con- 
cerning style. I love a book written in fine 
style, but I refuse to impose style on children; 
In every child there is a gigantic protest. 
Thus the son of praying parents often turns 
out to be a scoffer. I had a good instance 
of the danger of superimposition of st3de. 

I had a class of boys and girls of fifteen, 
sixteen, and seventeen 3^ears of age. For one 
period a week we all wrote five minute essays, 
and then we read them out. Sometimes we 
would make criticisms ; for instance one girl 
used the word '' beastly " in a serious essay, 
and we all protested against it. Then one 
day the head-master decided that they should 
write essays for him. He set a serious subject — 
The Function of Authority, I think it was — 
and then he went over their books with a blue 
pencil and corrected their spelling and style. 

Three days later my Enghsh period came 
round. I entered the room and found the 
class sitting round the fire. 

" Hullo ! '' I said, '* aren't you going to write?" 

" No,'' growled the class. 

'^■Why not ? " 

** Fed up with writing. We want to talk 
about economics or pSA^chology." 

A fortnight later they made an attempt 
to write short essays, but it was a miserable 



194 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

failure ; all the joy in creation had been killed 
by that blue pencil. 

I can give an example of the other way, 
the only way. One boy of fifteen hated writing 
essays, and when I began the five minute 
essay game he sat and read a book. After a 
time I gave out the subject '* Mystery,'' and I 
saw him look up quickly with flashing eyes. 

** Phew ! What a ripping subject I '' he cried, 
" I must have a shot at that ! " 

His shot was promising, and he continued 
to make shots, until some of his essays were 
praised by the class. Then one day he came to 
me. 

*' I don't know anything about stops and 
things," he said, '* and I want you to tell me 
about them." 

This is my ideal of education ; no child 
ever learns a thing until he wants to learn it. 
That lad picked up all he wanted to know about 
stops in half-an-hour. He was interested in 
stops because he wanted to write better essays. 
I need hardly say that he had listened to 
hundreds of lessons on stops during his school 
career. 



To-morrow I return to London, and to-night 
I went over to say good-bye to Dauvit. 

" Aye, dominie, and so ye're gaein' back to 
lyondon ! " he said. 

** I don't want to leave this lazy life, Dauvit," 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 195 

I said, *' but I must go back and start my 
school/' 

** Itll cost ye some bawbees to gang to 
London/' put in Jake Tosh. '* Penny three 
ha'pennies a mile noo-a-days I onderstand/' 

'* A shullin' a mile for corps," remarked the 
undertaker. 

Dauvit chuckled. 

" So ye'll better no dee in London, dominie/' 
he laughed. 

'* And that reminds me of Peter Wilson, 
him that passed into the Civil Service and gaed 
to London. He came hame onexpectedly wan 
mornin' and his father he says : ' What in a' 
the earth brocht ye hame in the month 
o' February, Peter ? Surely ye dinna hae a 
hoHday the noo ? ' 

** ' No,' says Peter, * but I had a cauld and 
I thocht I was maybe takkin' pewmonia, 
and, weel father, corpses is a bob a mile on 
the railway.' " 

" Dauvit," I said, " I don't care where I am 
buried." 

" Is that so ? " asked Jake in surprise. 
'* What's become o' yer patriotism, dominie ? 
I canna onderstand a man no wanting to be 
buried in his ain country. For my pairt I 
wudna like to be buried ony place but the 
wee kirkj^aird up the brae there." 

Dauvit grunted. 

** What does it matter, Jake, whaur ye're 
Juried ? " 



196 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

''Goad/' said Jake, "it matters a lot. 
The grund tip in the kirkyaird is the best grund 
in Scotland. It's a' sand, and they tell me that 
yer corp will keep for years in that grund." 

Dauvit laughed, but the others seemed to 
take Jake's preservation argument seriously. 

" Jake," said Dauvit, '' does it no strike ye 
that to be buried in yer native place is a 
disgrace ? " 

*' Hoo that, na ? " said Jake. 

" Because the man that bides in the place 
he was born in is of nae importance. A' the 
best men leave their native village, aye, and 
their native country. Aye, lads, the best 
men and the worst women leave their native 
country." 

'' I sincerely trust that you are not insinuat- 
ing that they leave together, Dauvit," I put in 
hastily. 

'* No, they dinna do that, dominie ; but 
whether they meet in lyondon I dinna ken," 
and he smiled wickedly. 

Jake spat in the grate. 

** I dinna see what the attraction o' lyondon 
is, " he said with a touch of contempt. 

It is rather difficult to describe," I said. 
'' For one thing 3^ou feel that you are in the 
centre of things. You are in the midst of all 
the best plays and concerts and processions 

and you never think of going to see 

them. Then all the important people are there, 
the King and I^loyd George and Bernard Shaw 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 197 

but you never see them anywhere. 

Then there are the places of historic interest, 
the Tower, Westminster Abbey, St. Paul's 

and you don't know where they are 

until your cousins come up for a week's trip, 
and then you ask a poHceman where the 
Tower is. And the strange thing is that you 
get to love lyondon." 

*' There will be a fell puckle funerals I dare- 
say," said the undertaker. 

" To tell the truth," I answered, " I have 
never seen a funeral in I^ondon. In the 
suburbs, yes, but never in the centre of the 
West End. I've often seen them at the 
crematorium in Golders Green." 

The undertaker frowned. 

*' That crematin' business shud be abolished 
by act o' Parhament," he said gruffly. '' It's 
just a waste o' guid wood and coal. They 
tell me it taks twa ton o' coal ilka time." 

I was surprised to find that the broad- 
minded Dauvit agreed with the undertaker 
in condemning cremation. I suspect that early 
training has something to do with it, and there 
may be an unconscious connecting of crema- 
tion with hell-fire. Dauvit's argument that 
cremation would destroy the evidence in poison- 
ing eases was a pure rationalisation. 

I wondered why the topic of funerals kept 
coming up, and I laughingly put the matter to 
Dauvit. 

'' Maybe it's because we're sad because ye're 



igS A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

gaein' awa/' he said half-seriously. ''Well 
miss yer crack at nichts/' 

At last I got up to go. 

" Aweel, Dauvit, I'll be going/' I said. 

*' Aweel, so long,'* said Dauvit without look- 
ing up. The others said " Guidnicht " or " So 
Long," and I went out. I was sorry to leave 
these good friends, and they were sorry to 
lose me ; yet we parted, it may be, for years, 
just as if we were to see each other to-morrow. 
We are a queer race. 



XI. 

WHEN I arrived in lyondon to-night I 
received a blow. A letter awaited 
me saying that the landlord of the 
school I was taking over had decided to sell 
the property. Thus all my dreams of a free 
school vanished in smoke. There isn't a house 
to rent in London ; thousands are for sale, but 
I have no money to buy. If I had money 
I should hesitate to buy, for if a school is a 
success it expands, and the ideal thing to do 
is to take it out to the country where there 
is fresh air and space to grow. 

To-night I feel pessimistic ; it is difficult 
to be an optimist when a long-planned scheme 
suddenly falls to pieces. 

I think of my capitalist friend Lindsay. 
He could buy me a school to-morrow, and never 
miss the money, but I don't think I should 
accept it. He would always have a big say 
in the running of it, and his ideals are not mine. 
I know other people with money, but I fancy 
that they have no faith in me. That is one of 
the disadvantages of writing light books like 
A Dominie s Log. The adult reads it and says : 
" Funny chap this ! '' But people have little 
faith in funny chaps. You can be a funny 

1»9 



200 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

chap if you are a magistrate or a cabinet 
minister, but a teacher must be a staid dignified 
person. He must be a man who by his serious 
demeanour will impress the children and lead 
them out of the morass of original sin in which 
they were born. Montessori is catching on 
in the educational world not entirely because 
of her excellent system ; part of her success 
is due to the fact that she never makes a joke ; 
she is always the dignified moral model 
teacher. 

Poor Montessori ! Here I am transferring 
my irritation at the landlord who sold ray 
school to her. I beg her pardon. Nor am 
I really annoyed with the landlord ; the person 
I am annoyed with is myself. I bungled that 
school business. 

Now I feel better. When I am irritated 
I always think of the traveller from St. Andrews. 
He arrived at Leuchars Junction and had five 
minutes to wait for the Edinburgh train. 
He entered the bar and had a drink. He had 
a second drink, and then awoke to the fact 
that he had missed the train. The next train 
was due in two hours. The barmaid shut 
the bar between trains and the traveller 
went out on the platform. It was a cold rainy 
November night. He went to the waiting 
room, but there was no fire there. 

" Anyway/' he said, '' I'll have a smoke,'* 
and he filled his pipe. Then he found that he 
had but one match left. He struck it, and 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 201 

it went out. He went out to the platform 
and found an old porter screwing down the 
lamps. The porter knelt down to tie his 
lace and the traveller approached him. 

'' Could you oblige me with a match ? '' 

The old porter eyed him dispassionately. 

" I dinna smoke. I dinna beheve in smokin.' 
I dinna hae a match.'' 

The traveller walked wearily forward to 
an automatic machine and inserted his last 
penny and drew out a bar of butter- 
scotch. He tossed it over the line, and then 
he threw his pipe after it. He walked along 
the platform, and then he came back. The 
old porter was again tying his lace. The traveller 
suddenly rushed at him and kicked him as 
hard as he could. 

'' What did ye do that for ? *' demanded 
the poor old man when he picked himself 
up. 

The traveller turned away in disgust. 

" Och, to hell wi' you ; ye're ay tying your 
lace ! '* he said. 

lyOts of people cannot see the joke in this 
yarn, and I challenge anyone to explain the 
point. 



Good fortune came to rescue me from 
sorrowing over my lost school. It sent me to 
Holland thuswise : about five hundred Famine 
Area children were coming from Vienna to 



202 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

England, and I was invited to become one of 
the escort. Then it struck me that I might go 
over earher and have a look at the Dutch 
schools. I hastened to get a few passport 

photographs ; I looked at them and 

then I thought I shouldn't risk going. How- 
ever, on second thoughts, I decided to risk it, 
and went to the passport office. There a 
gentleman with a big cigar looked at the photo- 
graph ; then he looked at me. 

" The face of a criminal," his e5^es seemed to 
say as he studied the photo. 

" Isn't it like me ? " I asked in alarm. 

" Quite a good likeness," he said brusquely, 
and passed me on to the next pigeon- 
hole. 

At last I landed in Flushing, and a kind 
guard found me a carriage. There I began to 
learn the Dutch language. '' Met rooken." 
Scots reek means smoke ; hurrah ! ''do not 
smoke ! " 

'' Verbodden te spuwen." ''It is forbidden 

to " no, that wouldn't be nice ! Got it ! 

" Do not spit ! " 

At this juncture a pretty Scheveningen 
lassie entered and greeted me. Alas ! I knew 
but five words of Dutch, and when I thought 
the matter over I concluded that they were not 
very appropriate for carrying on a mild flirta- 
tion. Still, it's wonderful how much you can 
do with facial expression. Just before the 
train started a man entered. He knew English, 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 203 

and with more kindness than knowledge of 
humanity he offered to act as interpreter. 
The ass ! as if a fellow can tell a girl through 
an interpreter that her hair is just the shade 
he admires. This fisher lassie was the only 
pretty girl I saw in Holland in ten days. 

Rotterdam. My first and abiding impres- 
sion was that never before had I seen so many 
badly-dressed people. If I had money and a 
profiteering complex I should set up a Bond 
vStreet shop in the centre of Rotterdam. No, 
that's wrong ; that wasn't my first impres- 
sion at all : my first impression was of a window 
filled with cigars at six cents each — one and a 
fifth pence. From that moment I loved Hol- 
land and the Dutch. What did it matter if 
their clothes were badly cut ? What did 
anything matter ? I dived into that shop 

and bought twenty and ten yards 

farther on discovered a shop with fatter and 
longer cigars at five cents each. Three days 
later in the Hague I walked round the cigar 
shops for two hours, dying for a smoke, 
but not daring to buy a cigar at five cents lest 
in the next street I should find a shop offering 
them at four cents 

It was in Rotterdam that I discovered how 
bad my manners were. I was sitting in a cafe 
when a gentleman entered. He swept off his 

hat and bowed graciously and I hastily 

put a protecting hand on the pocket containing 
my pocket-book. But every man who entered 



204 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

greeted me in the same wa3^ and I realised 
that I was in a poHte countr^^ By the end 
of the week I was beating the Dutch at their 
own game, for I swept off my hat to every 
poHceman, shopkeeper, tramwa^^man I spoke 
to. 

On a Monday morning I walked forth to 
inspect the Dutch schools. I saw a troop 
of little girls following a mistress, and I joined 
the procession. They turned into a playground, 
and I followed. I approached the lady. 

'' Do you speak English ? '' 

" Engelish ! Ja ! '' she said with a smile. 

" I am an English — no, Scots teacher,'' I 
explained, "and I should like to see the 
school.'' 

" I will ask the head-mistress," she said, 
and entered the school, while I stood and ad- 
mired the bonny white dresses of the girls. 

She returned shaking her head. 

''The head-mistress says that it is not allowed 
to visit a school in Holland without a permit 
from the Mansion House." 

" A rotten country ! " I growled, and went 
away. 

In the street I ran into a group of boys 
led by a master who was smoking a fat 
cigar. 

*' Speak Enghsh ? " I asked, hfting my hat 
gracefully. 

*' Nichtenrichtilbricht," he said; at least 
that's how it sounded. 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 205 

" Thank you/' I said, lifted my hat again, 
and fell in behind the boys. I was determined 
to see this thing through. 

I tackled him again when we reached the 
playground. 

'' I the head would see,'' I began, " the 
ober-johnny, the chef." 

'* Ja ! " he exclaimed with an enlightened 
grin, and nodded. In ten seconds the chief 
stood before me. He could speak a broken 
EngHsh, and said he would be glad to show^ 
me round. It was a third class school, and I 
gathered that in Holland there are three grades 
of State school ; the first class is attended by 
the rich, the second by the middle clavSs, and 
the third by the poor. 

The school was very like a Board School in 
England. The children sat in the familiar 
desks and were spoon-fed by the familiar 
teacher. There was nothing new about it. 
I noticed that hand writing seemed to be the 
most important thing, and each class teacher 
proudly showed me exercise books filled with 
beautiful copper-plate writing. Most obHging 
class teachers they were. Would I Hke to 
hear some singing ? It was wonderful singing 
in three parts ; what surprised me was that 
the boys seemed to be just as keen on singing 
as the girls. I have always found it other- 
wise in Scotland and England. 

In this school I got the gratifying news that 
corporal punishment is not allowed in Dutch 



2o6 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

schools, and later I learned that this applies 
to all reformatories also. 

I think the Dutch are fond of children. 
Children seem to be everywhere. I went to 
the pohce-station to register as an alien, 
and as the inspector was examining my pass- 
port his wee girl of three toddled in and climbed 
on his knees. He laid down his pen and fondled 
the child. Then his wife came in ; she had 
been out shopping, and wanted him to admire 
the big potatoes she had bought. I was 
delighted to see the human element mingle 
with the official. A country that allows wives 
and children to mix up with its red-tape is 
on the right road to health if not wealth. 

I went to the Hague next da}'', and English 
friends met me at the station and piloted me 
to their home. Next morning I visited an 
establishment called the Observatiehuis, and 
found that the superintendent had spent six 
3^ears in England and had an English wife. 
The observation house, he explained, is a home 
for bad boys. When convicted they are sent 
there and are '' observed." If a boy is well- 
behaved he is sent to live v/ith a family and 
learn a trade ; if he is incorrigible he is sent to a 
reformatory. 

I looked in vain for the new psychological 
way of treating dehnquents. There was dis- 
cipHne here, but it was kindly discipline, 
for Mr. Engels is a kindly man ; the boys sang 
as they swept the stairs. That was good. 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 207 

yet, it was Mr. Engels that brought freedom 
into the school ; his successor may be a 
bully. 

From Mr. Engels I got a letter of introduc- 
tion to a real reformatory in Amersfoort, and 
off I set. Amersfoort is inland and I expected 
to find much language difficulty there, for I 
thought it unlikely that English would be 
spoken so far inland. 

Amersfoort is a beautiful old town, and I 
at once set out to find the Coppleport men- 
tioned in my guide-book. I suppose I looked 
a lost soul. A youth of eighteen jumped off 
his cycle and lifted his cap. Then he pointed 
to a badge he wore in his coat. 

" Boy scout r' he said. 

*' Excellent ! " I cried, '' you speak English ? *' 

He held out his hand. 

" Good bye ! '' he said ; " pleased you to 
meet ! " 

'* How do you do ? " I said. 

He grinned. 

'' God damn ! '' he said sweetly. 

After that conversation seemed to die down. 
I managed to convey to him that I was looking 
for the Coppleport, and he led me to it. 
Gradually his English improved, and he told 
me of his brother in England. A nice lad. 
I told him that I had once had a long con- 
versation with the great B.P., but he looked 
blank. 

"Baden Powell, your chief,*' I explained. 



2o8 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

He shook his head ; he had never heard of 
B.P. I think now that what was wrong 
was that he did not understand the name as 
I pronounced it ; possibly he knows B.P. 
under the sound of Bahah Povell or something 
similar. 

On the following morning I went to the 
reformatory^ It was a beautiful building fitted 

with every appliance necessary and 

one not necessary — a solitary confinement 
room. A young teacher, Mr. Conijn, a very 
decent chap, who could speak excellent English, 
showed me round. Every door we came to 
had to be opened with a key and locked be- 
hind us. Here there was more of military 
discipline than in the Observatiehuis, but 
none of the boys looked sulky or unhappy. 
The relations of the boys and the teachers 
w^ere fine ; as Conijn passed a lad he would 
pull his hair or pass a funny remark, and the 
boy would grin and reply. 

'' An}^ self-government ? " I asked. 

" We tried it but it was no good. It may 
work with English boys but not with Dutch," 
said Mr. Conijn. 

" Did you have locked doors ? " I asked. 

'* Oh, yes." 

*' Then self-government hadn't the ghost 
of a chance to succeed," I remarked. 

We entered a class where an old man of 
about eighty was teaching a group. 

'* Why do these lads keep their eyes on the 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 209 

ground ? " 1 asked. " Is their spirit crushed 
out of them ? " 

Conijn laughed. 

" They are admiring your boots \ '* he 
cried. 

I wore a pair of ski-ing boots on my trip, 
and all Holland stared open-mouthed at them. 
If I had been wanted for a murder I don't 
think anyone in Holland could have identified 
me, for their eyes never got above my 
boots. 

One of the masters, Mr. van Something- 
or-other, very trustingly lent me his bike, 
and on the follo^^dng day I cycled to I^aren 
to see the Humanitarian School there. Nearly 
every road has a cycle path on one side and a 
riding path on the other, but in spite of the 
excellent roads I did not enjoy cycHng in 
Holland ; a free wheel was of little value 
on the flat surface. One dehghtful feature 
about cycHng in Holland is that there are 
no mid-day closing times for pubs, but on the 
other hand you cannot raise much of a thirst 
in a flat country. 

Well, I reached I^aren after many narrow 
escapes, for I was continually forgetting that 
you keep to the right in Holland. A postman 
came along, and I jumped off. 

" Humanitaire School ? '' 1 asked as I doffed 
my hat. 

By his expression I judged that he did not 
know the institution under that name. 



210 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

*' School/' I said, and he nodded and pointed 
to the village State school. 

" Nay ! School Humanitaire ! '' I persisted. 

At this juncture another man came for- 
ward, and the two of them jawed away gut- 
turally for some time. I began to grow 
weary. 

*' Hell 1 '' I murmured to myself half 
aloud. 

The postman brightened, and enlightenment 
came to him. 

** EngeHssman \ " he exclaimed. 

" War ! " I cried, " I m a Scot," and I left 
the two of them discussing Engelissmen. 

After much trouble and man}^ bitter words 
I foxmd the school. A gentleman who looked 
extremely like Bernard Shaw before Shaw's 
hair turned grey, was digging in a garden 
with a lot of boys and girls. He was Mr. 
Elbrink, the head-master. He could speak 
English and he showed me round. 

The school is rather like what is known as 
the crank school in England. In a manner 
it is the super-crank school, for everyone 
on the staff is teetotal, vegetarian, and a non- 
smoker. Here it was that I heard of lyight- 
heart for the first time, and I blushed for my 
ignorance of the gentleman. It appears that he 
was a great educational reformer, a sort of 
Froebel I fancied, for handwork seemed to be 
the main consideration in the school. But I 
regret to say that the school did not impress 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 211 

me much. Too many children were doing the 
same sort of work ; they sat in desks and held 
themselves more or less rigid. Here was 
benevolent authority again, not true freedom. 
All schools in Holland are State schools, and 
the Humanitarian School is one of them. It 
is almost impossible for a State school to be 
very much advanced ; I think it is impossible, 
for the State is the national crowd, and a 
large crowd has little use for the crank. 

I returned to Amersfoort, where by this time 
I had become the guest of the International 
School of Philosophy. This is a building 
standing in about twenty acres of ground amid 
the pine forests two miles south of the town. 
I was the sole guest, for the summer classes 
had not started. This school is the beginning 
of a great movement. Here students from 
every country will meet and discuss Hfe and 
education. Mr. Reiman, the president, talked 
long and earnestly to me about the scheme, 
but I found myself challenging his insistence 
on spiritual education. 

The aim of the school is to develop the spiritual 

side of man, an excellent aim so long 

as man does not imagine that by Hving on the 
higher plane he is annihilating his earthly 
self. Everyone there was very, very kind to me, 
but I did not feel quite in my element, for I 
am not an obviously spiritual person. I find 
that I can discuss the higher life best when I 
have a glass of Pilsener at my elbow and a penny 



212 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

cigar in my mouth. It is clear that I have 
a complex about the higher Ufe, and it may be 
a sour-grapes complex. All the same I should 
like to attend a summer course at Amersfoort 
and hsten to the wise men dilate on the Bhaga- 
vadgita, Psycho-anatysis and ReHgion, Plato, 
Sufism, and other subjects on the programme ; 
anyway I would have no prepossessions and 
prejudices in listening to Dr. G. R. S. ]\Ieads' 
course of lectures on The Mystical Philosophy 
and Gnosis of the Trismegistic Tractates. 

From Amersfoort I went to Amsterdam. 

'' Umsterdum, dree klasse, returig," I said 
to the ticket office girl. 

'' Third class return ? '' she asked with a 
smile and gave me the ticket. 

I was indignant. 

It is the most humihating thing in the world 
to ask a question in Dutch and to be answered 
in English. In Rotterdam I had stopped a 
seafaring looking man and tried to ask him 
in Dutch what was the way to the Hotel de 
France. He listened patiently while I strug- 
gled with the language ; then he spat on my 
boot. 

*' Hotel de France ? " he repHed in broad 
Cockney, '* damned if I know.'' 

On the way to Amsterdam I got into a 
carriage full of farmers and one of them made 
a remark to me. I shook my head. 

*' Engelissman ? " he said. 

I nodded, 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 213 

Then those men began to talk about Engeliss- 
men, and they talked and laughed all the 
way to Amsterdam. Every now and then 
one of them would jerk his thumb in my 
direction. It was a tr3ang journey. 

Arrived in Amsterdam I made for the Rijks 
Museum. At the door a seedy-looking man 
touched me on the arm. 

" Guide, sir ? '' 

"No thank \^ou.'' 

" Two hundred rooms, sir ! Official guide/' 

" No thank you.'' 

He kept pace with me, and in a weak moment 
I mquired his charge. It was three guilden 
(five shilHngs), and I saw^ at once that the 
dirty dog had won, for he took on an air of 
possession. 

'' Righto," I said resignedly, and he led 
me into the building. 

He began his tiresome patter. 

'' Thees picture was painted in 1547 ; beautiful 
ees eet not ? Wonderful arteest ! " 

I sighed. 

" Take me to the Rembrandts," I said. 

I cannot describe this incident. I hated 
the beast because I had been so weak as to 
accept his services. The beauty of Rembrandt 
and Franz Hals was lost on me ; all I could 
see was the dirty face of that guide. Rem- 
brandt's Night Watch made me forget the 
creature for a moment, but when he began 
to describe it I fled in horror. We finished 



214 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

up in the modern section, and as I looked 
at van Gogh and Cezanne and Whistler's 
Effie Deans his squeak}^ voice kept up a 
running commentary. I rushed from the build- 
ing after a ten minutes' tour, paid the worm 
his three guilden .... and then went back 
and enjoyed the gallery. But I nearly com- 
mitted murder in the Rijks Museum that da}^ 
If ever I am hanged it will be for murdering 
an official guide. This particular specimen 
spoiled my visit to Amsterdam. I could not 
get away from the thought of my weakness, 
and I fled the city. 

In the train going back to Amersfoort a 
genial Dutchman made a remark to me. I 
resolved that I should pretend to be a fellow- 
countryman. 

'' Ja ! " I said, and the answer seemed 
to satisfy him. He went on to say other 
things, and when his facial expression seemed 
to demand an affirmative I said '' Ja ! " 

After a time he frowned as he said a 
sentence. 

" Nay ! " said I. 

That did it. He became white with anger, 
and swore at me all the way to Amersfoort. 
He had a fine command of language, too, 
and I was extremely sorr}^ that I could not 
understand it. 

On the Saturday I set off on m}^ return 
lournc}^ to Rotterdam, doing a tour in American 
:ashion of Leiden on the way. It was Hke 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 215 

^ing home, for I liked Rotterdam. I think 
i c was the gay paint on the barges that attracted 
me so much. . 

On the vSunday morning the Austrian kiddies 
arrived, and my sight-seeing ended. 



XII. 

THE Austrian kiddies arrived at the 
Maas station on Sunday morning, and 
the Dutch folk gave them a kindly 
welcome. The Rotterdam committee was in 
charge, and I stood back because it was not 
my job. The kiddies came tumbling out of 
the train with great relief, for they had 
travelled for two nights. All had heavy ruck- 
sacks, many of them the packs of their dead 
fathers and brothers. 

My eye ht on little Hansi. She stood on 
the platform crying, and I went forward to 
comfort her. Alas ! I knew less German than 
I did Dutch, and I knew not what she said; 
but one of the Austrian escort told me that 
she had been homesick all the way. There 
is, however, a universal language that all 
children understand, and I took w^ee Hansi 
in my arms and cuddled her. The flow of 
tears stopped and she took from a small basket 
slung to her neck a tin}^ naked doll. I in- 
cluded Puppe in the cuddle, and Hansi smiled. 
A dear wee mite she was, very very thin, with 
great big eyes that were sunken. Her tears 
did not affect me, but when she smiled I found 
myself weeping, and I had to blow my nose 
hard. 

2ia 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 217 

The four hundred and fifty-eight children 
were bundled across the road to a ship, which 
took them in two parts across the Maas to 
the large building used by the Cunard Line 
for emigrants. Many of them thought they 
were on the way to England, and ten minutes 
later I found a wee chap gazing round in 
wonder on the land of England. 

'' This aint England, anywye," he said at 
last in e\ndent disgust ; *' look at them clogs ! 
This is Holland." 

The boy was a I^ondoner resident in Vienna. 
There were about a dozen EngHsh children 
in the party. Later I found one standing 
in front of a group of Austrian boys. 

" Any one o' you,*' he was shouting, ''I'll 
box the whole gang o' you ! " 

This Cockney, his little brother, and their 
sister were the thorn in the flesh of the 
escort. 

'' Absolute terrors,'' declared everyone, but 
I liked them. 

Many of the children were middle class, 
children of doctors, lawyers, architects, and 
so on ; nice kiddies they were. The bigger 
girls could speak English, and I used them 
as interpreters. 

On the Monday morning the English escort 
took charge. The first task was medical in- 
spection, and the two English doctors and 
four or five Dutch doctors prepared for action. 
Our job was to marshal the kiddies, help 



2i8 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

them to take their shirts off, and then bundle 
them into the inspection room. It sounds 
easy, but it was a weary business. You 
looked down the list for No. 258, and you 
found a name. 

'' Mitzi Dvoracek ! " you called, and won- 
dered whether a boy or a girl would appear. 
There was no answer .... and an hour 
later you found a little girl who had lost her 
identity card, and you concluded that she 
was Dvoracek, but she wasn't ; her name 
was lyCopoldine Czsthmkyghw, or something 
resembling that. 

I was greatly troubled by their questions. 
Following a method I had used with indifferent 
effect while conversing with garrulous Dutch- 
men in railway carriages, I answered " Jql" 
and '* Nay '' alternately. Man^^ of the children 
stared at me in w^onder and I marvelled . . . 
until I discovered that most of them had 
been asking me the way to the lavatory. After 
that I just pointed to a door in the wall when 
a boy asked me a question, and when one 
lad didn't seem to understand, I took him 
by the back of the neck and shoved him through 
the door. Then I found that he had been 
avsking the time. 

I gave up replying to questions after that. 

The children had all been examined, and 
one lad stood alone ; he had no card and 
no one could place him. Then he confessed 
that he was a stowawav who had been too 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 219 

old to join the batch, and had boarded the 
train quietly at Vienna. Mrs. Ensor, the 
secretary of the Famine Area Committee, 
proved herself a sport b^^ declaring that she 
would take him to England. The good Dutch 
folk also rose to the occasion, and went out 
and bought him a pair of short trousers. 

In the afternoon I sat down beside a few 
boys. And then I did a fatal thing. A 
boy dropped his pencil and I picked it up, 
threw it over the house .... and then pro- 
duced it from another lad's pocket. That 
did it. In two seconds I had a hundred child- 
ren round me roaring at me. An Austrian 
lady explained that they were calling me a 
magician and asking for more. I blushingly 
told her to explain to them that it was my 
only trick. Sighs of disgust followed, and 
I was on the point of losing my popularity 
when I hastily got the lady to explain to 
them that I had a better talent .... I 
could make anyone laugh merely by looking 
at him. Fifty of them at once challenged 
me to begin, and I had a great time. One 
lad beat me, but then he had toothache, a 
blistered heel, and was homesick. 

After a time I asked them to sing to me, 
and they sang sweet folk songs of their home. 
They were delightful singers, and the boys 
sang as eagerty and as well as the girls. In 
England boys asually hate singing. I mar- 
velled at their all knowing the same songs, 



220 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

and one of the girls explained to me that 
in Austria every school has the same songs ; 
more than that, every school has the same 
class-books, and if two children Hving a hun- 
dred miles apart meet on the street they can 
say to each other : '' I'm at page 67 of my 
Geography. What page are you at ? *' 

They demanded a song from me, and I 
sang Now is the Month of Maying, and, by 
special request, Tipper ary. Then I asked them 
to sing their National Anthem, and the lady 
began it, but the children did not follow her. 
At my look of surprise the lady said : '' They 
cannot sing it because now they feel that they 
have no Austria left to sing about/' 

A man's voice sounded from inside the 
building, and they rushed indoors, for it was 
the voice of their beloved Ministry of Health 
doctor, who had brought them from Vienna, 
and they all loved him. They forgot me at 
once and left me .... all but one. Little 
Hansi put her wee hand in mine and snuggled 
closer .... and that's why I love her so 
very much. 

On Tuesday morning they all took up their 
packs, and we set off for England via the 
Maas boat and station. We packed into car- 
riages and set off. There was no water on 
the train, but we laughed and said : *' We'll 
be in Flushing in two hours ! We are a special ! ' ' 
We were. We left the Maas station at one 
o'clock, and we travelled until three. Then 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 221 

we drew up ... . and found we were back 
at the Maas station. Where we had been 
I don't know, but it was the biggest mystery 
of my life. Well, we crawled along past 
picturesque villages where women with white 
caps and red arms smiled on us and gave 
us water to drink. And at eight o'clock we 
reached Flushing all very weary and extremely 
dirty. The kiddies had a good meal set out 
on white tablecloths, and the doctor and 
I had the best Pilsener of our lives. We 
handed over the kiddies to the ship stewards 
and the fresh escort from England, and retired 
to rest. 

I awoke at six and found that all the children 
were on deck, and the bad English boy almost 
in the water, for his heels were off the ground 
and his head far down towards the water. 
He was looking for fish, he said. None of 
the children had seen the sea before, but I 
think they were too tired to be excited about 
it. They did become excited when they saw 
the cliffs of Dover. 

Much to my annoyance a gentleman had 
been teaching them God Save the King on 
the way ove '. I was annoyed because I 
knew it was a piece of jingoism meant fox 
the journalists at Folkestone. When we drew 
up at the pier, sure enough the gentleman 
struck up the tune, and the kiddies sang it. 
But the girls who could speak EngHsh sang 
God Save YOUR Gracious King. I thought 



222 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

it a beautiful touch ; the finest piece of good 
taste I have ever come across. 

I didn't like the well-dressed ladies who 
came bossing around at Folkestone. Frankly 
I was jealous. As I w^as leading the children 
off the steamer, one of them touched me 
on the arm and asked me to make way for 
the children. And I smiled to see that the 
women in rich dresses managed somehow to 
get in front of the camera. 

We took the children to Sandwich by rail 
and then to a camp by motor lorry. It was 
a tiresome job loading and unloading the 
lorry, but after six trips I found that every 
child was in camp. I went off to have a 
wash and some tea, and then, glowing with 
self-satisfaction at all I had done, I lit a cigar 
and walked outside. A gentleman passed me. 

" Are you a worker ? '' he demanded. 

'* I — er — I suppose I am — in a way,'' I 
said modestly. 

" Well, don't you think you might find 
something to do ? " he asked. " There's plenty 
to do, you know." 

Then for the first time in my Ufe I under- 
stood the old Mons Ribbon men who used 
to annihilate the recruit with the terse phrase : 
*' Afore you came up ! " 

The pressmen passed by, a dozen of them 
with the stowaway in their midst. Presently 
they posed him and a dozen cameras snapped 
while a cinema burred. And next day the 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 223 

papers told a romantic vStory ; the stowaway 
had crept into the train at Vienna, and, food- 
less, had hid until he arrived in Rotterdam. 
Then darkly he had crept on board the ship 
and had been discovered at Folkestone. Also 
when next day I saw in the pictorial papers 
a photograph of a boy violinist playing to 
his chums, I was not very much surprised 
to find the title of the photo was : The Stowaway 
Entertains His Companions. As a matter of 
fact, the fiddler wasn't the stowaway at alL 
but this incident makes me think hard about 
history. If a Fleet Street reporter changes 
one boy into another, why, we may be all 
wrong in our history. Henry VIII. may only 
have had one wife, and the reporter who 
interviewed him may have had so much sack 
to drink that his vision along with the journal- 
istic touch may have manufactured the other 
fiYQ. The tale of King Harold being shot 
through the eye at the Battle of Hastings 
may have arisen from a reporter's using the 
figurative expression that William the Con- 
queror '* put his eye out." Nor, after reading 
the account of the landing of the Austrian 
children, can I believe the tale of the minstrel 
Taillifer who sprang into the water to lead 
the Normans in landing. And as for the 
time-honoured phrases, " Take away that 
bauble ! " and *' England expects every man 
to do his duty," I don't believe they were 
ever uttered — not now. 



224 A DOMINIK IN DOUBT 

I am not singling out journalists as special 
misreporters. Not one of us can report an 
incident truly. There is a good example of 
tliis truth in Swift's Psychology and Everyday 
Life, just published. Swift prepared a stunt 
as a test for his adult class. In the midst 
of a serious lecture two men and two women 
students created a disturbance outside in the 
lobby, then they burst into the room. One 
held a banana pistol-wise at another's head. 
vSwift dropped a toy bomb, and one of the 
students staggered back crying : *' I'm shot I " 

One student dropped a parcel containing a 
brick, and all yelled and made much noise. The 
class was seriously alarmed until they were 
assured that the whole affair was a put-up 
job. Each student was asked to write an 
account of what had happened, and the result 
of their attempts is so astounding that the 
reader becomes uncertain whether any witness 
in a law-court ever tells the truth. Few, if 
an}^, students could identify one of the wranglers; 
every account said that the banana was a 
real pistol ; only one or two saw the brick 
drop. The strangest thing was that many 
were quite sure of the identity of the actors 
.... and one or two of the accounts 
named students who had long since left the 
college. I write from memory, but the facts 
were as arresting as the ones I have given. 

This makes one uneasy about the methods 
the police adopt to identify a prisoner. If 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 225 

I saw a man shoot another in Piccadilly, it 
is a thousand to one chance that I should 
not be able to identify him later. Yet many 
a man has been hanged on identification. 

But I meant to finish my account of the 
Austrian kiddies. The time came when I 
had to leave them and return to lyondon. 
I set out to find my Hansi to say good-bye 
to her. I saw her in the distance .... 
and then I ran away, for I hate saying 
good-bye. 

I liked those kiddies, dear wee souls, just 
as sweet as any English kiddies, but then 
children have no nationality ; they are lovable 
for they all belong to the Never Never I^and. 
Barrie proved himself a genius when he created 
Peter Pan, for Peter symbolises man's highest 
wish — to become a little child and never 
grow up. '' Genius," he says, " is the power 
of being a boy again at will." It is true in 
his case. Yet this kind of genius is retro- 
spective ; it is a regression. The genius who 
will help man to look forward instead of back- 
ward must not return to boyhood ; he must 
go forward to superman. To put it psycholo- 
gically, Barriers genius comes from the un- 
conscious, but what the world needs is a man 
whose genius will come from the superconscious, 
the divine. 



XIII. 

I HAVE jtist been reading Jack lyondon's 
Michael, Brother of Jerry, and I am full of 
righteous rage. What a picture ! It is the 
story of how performing animals are trained, 
and before I had read half the book I made 
a vow that never again will I sit through a 
performance of animals. 

The tale of Ben Bolt the tiger, if known 
by the masses, would kill every animal turn 
on the stage. Ben Bolt, fresh from the jungle, 
is broken by the trainers. The method is 
unspeakable ; he is lashed with iron bars 
and stabbed with forks until in agony he falls 
senseless in the arena. This treatment goes 
on for weeks .... and in the end many 
good, kindly people see Ben Bolt, a miserable, 
broken animal, sit up in a chair like a human. 
And they laugh. My God ! 

Then there is Barney the good-natured mule 
that was once a family pet. L/ater he becomes 
the celebrated bucking mule, and a prize 
is offered to anyone who will keep on his back 
for one minute. Audiences go into fits of 
laughter at his antics. But the audiences 
do not know that Barney was trained with 
a spiked saddle, and that for months life was 
one long agony of pain. 

226 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 227 

Is my anger due to the cruelty I am re- 
pressing in myself ? I don't care whether 
it is sadism or the spark of the divine in me. 
All I care about is that this inferno of pain 
must cease. 

Never has any book affected me as this 
one has done. By word of mouth and by 
my pen I shall try my hardest to send dear 
old Jack London's message round the world. 
Public opinion is the only thing that can stop 
the misery of these broken creatures, and I 
suggest that the anti-vivisectionists turn their 
energies to this infinitely worse evil. The 
vivisectionists, at any rate, are working for 
humanity, but the brutes who break performing 
animals are merely amusing crowds of good 
people who know nothing about what goes 
on behind the scenes. 



I see in the newspaper that Mary Pickford 
and Douglas Fairbanks held up the traffic 
in Piccadilly. They appeared on a balcony 
at the Ritz, and the crowd went frantic. The 
super-hero and the super-heroine of the cinema 
drew the crowd's emotion to them, and Tagore 
the Indian poet arrived in town at the same 
time unnoticed. It would seem that the crowd 
responds to the presence of the unimportant 
person only. I^ondon went mad over Hawker 
and Jack Johnson, and Georges Carpentier ; 



228 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

and if Charlie Chaplin were to come over, 
I fancy lyondon would take a general 
holiday. 

No one will contend that these people are 
of supreme importance in the scheme of life. 
Charlie is a funny little man ; Douglas Fair- 
banks is a fine lump of a fellow ; Mary Pick- 
ford is a sweet little woman. But Tagore 
will live longer ; Thomas Hardy, Bernard 
Shaw, Bertrand Russell, Sigmund Freud are 
of greater moment to humanity, yet each 
could walk out of Paddington Station and 
be unrecognised by the crowd. 

The morning paper shows well that the 
crowd is interested only in unessentials- 
*' Punish the profiteers ! " was the press cry 
a few months ago. Well, they punished the 
profiteers .... and prices continued to rise. 
A few years ago the cry was : *' Flog the 
white slave traffickers ! " They flogged them, 
and yet I still see thousands of white slaves 
in the West End of London. And while 
Europe is sinking into anarchy and bankruptcy 
to-day, the only remedies the crowd repre- 
sentatives — ^the press — can think of are remedies 
of the Hang-the-Kaiser type. I beheve 
that the crowd still thinks that juvenile 
crime is mainly caused by cinema five-part 
dramas. 

The crowd is rather like the individual 
unconscious ; it is primitive, and like the 
unconscious it can only wish. The crowd 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 229 

that welcomed Mary and Douglas was closely 
akin to the personal unconscious. Douglas 
stands to each individual in the crowd as 
the eternal hero, the man who alwa^'-s wins. 
Each man in the crowd sees in Douglas his 
own ideal self, so that when the office boy 
cheers Douglas he is cheering himself. Mary 
has been well named " the world's sweet- 
heart " ; she is the ideal heroine, beautiful, 
wronged, protected by six foot of masculinity. 
Both come from the world of make-believe, 
the world of phantasy. Their arrival in Eng- 
land simply made a dream come true. 

Now I am certain that if any individual 
in the great Piccadilly crowd had met Douglas 
and Mai-y on the boat, he or she would have 
looked at them with interest, but there would 
have been no cheering and throwing of roses. 
What the crowd does is to raise an emotion 
to a superlative degree. In a full hall you 
will laugh at a joke that would not bring 
a smile to your face in a room. You become 
absorbed in your crowd, and you are fully 
open to 3^our crowd's suggestion. I generally 
laugh at CharHe ChapHn, but one night a 
cinema manager, a friend of mine, gave me 
a private view of Charhe's latest production. 
I sat alone in the large cinema palace .... 
and I couldn't even smile. Had a crowd 
been there to share my laugh, I should have 
roared. 

The Douglas-Mary episode makes me pessi- 



230 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

mistic about the future of democrac}'. For 
democracy is crowd rule, and the crowd is 
a baby when it isn't a savage. Yet we have 
no real democracy in this country. We have 
a slave state, the exploiters and the exploited, 
the "haves'' and the "have nots." Douglas 
and Mary came over, and the poor beauty- 
starved populace forgot for the moment its 
poverty, and showier ed all its pent-up emotion 
on the people from picture-book land. 

In EHzabethan times the world was a place 
of wonder ; every mariner was coming home 
with wondrous tales of Spanish gold and 
men with necks like bulls. All you had to 
do to find a reality that was more wonderful 
than fancy was to sail away across the sea. But 
to-day the world holds no myster^^; there 
are no pirates to overcome, no prisoned maidens 
to rescue. Reality means toil and taxes and 
trouble. But there is a land where men 
are dew-lapped like bulls .... the land of 
phantasy. There is a society where the villain 
always gets his deserts .... the land of 
film pictures. And when your hero and heroine 
w^alk out of the picture and become real flesh 
and blood, what are you to do ? After all, 
you cannot pour all your emotion into your 
looms and office-desks and counters. Sweet- 
faced Mary does not know it, but she is one 
of the best aUies that our capitalist system 
could have ; for if the crowd were not showering 
its emotion on her it might well be using it 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 231 

up in the smashing of all the ugly things in 
our civilisation. 



I have been thinking of the crowd in another 
aspect. Last year in a merry mood I sat 
down to write a novel. I meant it to be 
a comedy, but, having no control over the 
characters, I found that they insisted in making 
the story a farce. The result was The Booming 
of Bunkie. I thought it a very funny book, 
and I laughed at some of my own jokes and 
murmured, " Good ! '^ I impatiently awaited 
the book's appearance, and when the day 
of publication came I sat down hopefully to 
await the press notices. The first one to come 
in was lukewarm. 

" Why do papers send a funny book to an 
old fossil of a reviewer with no sense of 
humour ? '' I said, testily and waited for 
the next post. Well, it came ; it brought 
three adverse notices and a letter. 

" Dear Dominie, I admired your Log, but 
why, oh why, did you perpetrate such a mon- 
strosity as The Booming of Bunkie ? " 

Then a friend wrote me a letter. 

"Dear old chap,— You are suffering from 
the effects of the war. If the war has induced 
you to write Bunkie, I am all for hanging 
the Kaiser.'' 

For weeks I clung to the belief that the 
crowd had no sense of humour . . . .then I 



232 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

re-read my novel. I still hold that it is 
funny in parts, but I see what is wrong. It 
is a speciaHsed type of humour, or rather 
wit, the type that undergraduates might appre- 
ciate. In fact I was recently gratified to 
hear that the students of a Scots university 
were rhapsodising about it. The real fault 
of the book is that it is clever, and to be clever 
is to be at once suspect. 

I naturally like to think that the circulation 
of a book is generally in inverse proportion 
to its intrinsic merit. J. D. Beresford's novels 
are, to me, much better than those of th^ 
late Charles Garvice, yet I make a guess that 
Garvice's circulation was many times greater 
than Beresford's. Still I cannot argue that 
the reverse is true — that because a book does 
not go into its second edition it is necessarily 
good. I find that the problem of circulations 
is a difficult one. I cannot, for instance, 
understand why The Young Visiters sold in 
thousands ; I failed to raise a smile at it. 
Again, there is my friend although pubHsher, 
Herbert Jenkins. I didn't think Bindle funny, 
yet it has been translated into umpteen 
European languages. Jenkins himself does not 
think it funny, and that, possibly, is why 
he is my friend. 

The most surprising success to me was 
Ian Hay's The First Hundred Thousand. I 
read Pat MacGill's Red Horizon about the 
same time, and thought Hay was stilted and 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 233 

superior with a public-school man's patronising 
Punch-like attitude to the working-class re- 
cruits. I thought that he didn't know what 
he was writing about, that he had not reached 
the souls of the men. MacGill, on the other 
hand, gave me the impression of a warm, 
passionate, intense knowledge of men ; he 
wrote as one who lived with ordinary men 
and knew them through and through. Yet 
I fancy that The Red Horizon, popular as it 
was, did not have the sales of The First Hundred 
Thousand. 

1 was lunching with Professor John Adams 
one day in London. We got on to the vSubject 
of circulations, and he said that he had just 
been asking the biggest bookseller in London 
what novel sold best. 

'' Have a guess,'' said the Professor to me. 
'' David Copper field," I said promptly. 
He laughed. 

" Not bad ! *' he said, " you've got the 
author right, but the book is A Tale of Two 
Cities.'' 

He then asked me to guess what two authors 
sold best among the troops at the front 
during the war. 

" Charles Gar vice and Nat Gould," I said, 
and the Professor thought me a wonderful 
fellow, for I had guessed aright. 

There is a whiskered Ford story which 
tells that Mr. Ford took a new car from his 
factory and invited a visitor to have a spin 



234 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

They started off, and went seven miles out 
Then the car stopped. Ford jumped out and 
lifted the bonnet. 

" Good Lord ! '' he cried, " the engine hasn't 
been put in ! The car must have run seven 
miles on its reputation ! *' 

I think that books run many miles on 
reputation alone. I,ike a snowball the farther 
a circulation rolls the more it gathers to itself. 
But what is it that makes a book popular ? 
The best press notices in the world will not 
send the circulation of a book up to a hundred 
thousand level. What sells a book is talk. 
Scores of people said to me : ''Oh, have you 
r^ad The Young Visiters ? " I hasten to add, 
as a vScot, that I personally did not help to 
increase the circulation ; I borrowed the book 
from an enthusiast. Talk sells a book, but 
we have to discover why people talk about 
The Young Visiters and not about — er — The 
Booyning of Bunkie. The book that is to 
sell well must be able to touch a chord in the 
crowd heart, and TheYoung Visiters sold because 
it touched the infantile chord in the cro\^d 
heart ; it brought back the happiest days of 
Hfe, the schooldays : again, its naive Mak- 
propisms appealed to the crowd, because we 
are all glad to laugh at the social and gram- 
matical errors we have made and conveniently 
forgotten about. 

Bunkie did not reach the hundred thousand 
level because it was too clever ; it was a 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 235 

purely intellectual essay in wit rather than 
humour. And the crowd distrusts wit, and 
that is why the witty plays of Oscar Wilde 
are seldom produced, while Charley's Aunt 
goes on for ever. 

I am tempted to go on to a comparison 
of wit with humour, but I shall only remark 
that wit is an intellectual thing, whereas 
humour is emotional. Humour is elemental, 
but wit is cultural. Without a language you 
could have humour, but without language 
there could be no wit. 



I have just come across a small book entitled 
Hints on School Discipline, by Ernest F. Row, 
B.Sc. 

*' Boys will only respect a master whom 
they fear,'' he says. I have been preaching 
this doctrine for years .... that respect 
always has fear behind it ... . and it 
pleases me to find that an exponent of 
the old methods should support my argu- 
ment. 

When I began to read the book I was 
amazed. 

" Good lyord ! '' I cried, *' this chap should 
have published his book in the year 1820. 
He advocates a system that modern psychology 
has shown to be fatal to the child. It is 
army discipline applied to schools.'' 



236 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

I found it hard to finish the book, but I 
read every word of it and then I said to myself : 
" The majority is on the side of Row. Eton, 
Harrow, many elementary teachers would agree 
with him. He is evidently an honest sort 
of fellow, and he must be reckoned with. 
I must try to see his point of view.'' 

And I think I see it. He accepts current 
education with its set subjects, time-tables, 
order, morality, and he is trying to adapt 
the young teacher to what is established. 
Hence to maintain all these things, we must 
have stern discipline and swift punishment. 
But I wonder if Row has thought of the other 
side of the question ; I wonder if he has 
asked himself whether order and time-tables 
and obedience and respect are really necessary. 
I should like to meet him and have a chat ; 
I think I should like him, and further, I think 
that I could convert him to the other way 
.... if he is under forty. 

Ah ! Horrid thought ! Is it possible that 
Row is pulling our legs ? No, he writes as 
an honest man. Perhaps he knows all about 
the modern movement ; perhaps he has studied 
Mont ssori, Freud, Jung, Homer I^ane, Edmond 
Holmes, and found that they are all patheti- 
cally wrong. Mayhap he has proved that 
the child is a sinner. 

" The young teacher should never address 
a boy by his Christian name or nickname/' 
he says. 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 237 

Oh, surely he is pulling our legs ! 



At intervals during the past few years I 
have been puzzled when people congratulated 
me on my village school in lyancashire. I 
had quite a number of misunderstandings 
on the subject. Then one day I discovered 
that there was a village schoolmaster in 
I^ancashire called E. F. O'Neill. I wrote him 
telling him that I was coming to see his 
school, and one July morning I alighted at 
one of the ugliest villages in the world, and 
I walked past slag-heaps and all the horrors 
of industrialism to a red building on the 
outskirts. Three or four boys were digging 
in the school garden. I walked into the 
school, and two seconds after entering I said 
to myself : " E. F. O'Neill, you are a great 
man 1 " 

There were no desks, and I could see no 
teacher. Half-a-dozen children stood round 
a table weighing things and cutting things. 

" What's this ? " I asked. 

" The shop," said a girl, and after a little 
time I grasped the idea. You have paste- 
board coins, and you come to the shop and 
buy a pound of butter (plasticene), two poimds 
of sugar (sand), and a bottle of Yorkshire 
Relish (a brown mixture unrecognisable to 
me). You pay your sovereign and the shop- 
keeper gives you the change, remarks on 



238 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

the likelihood of the weather's keeping up, 
and turns to the next customer. 

I walked on and found a boy writing. 

" Hullo, sonny, what are you on ? '' 

** My novel/' he said, and showed me the 
beginning of chapter XII. 

A yoimg man came forward, a slim youth 
with twinkling eyes. 

"E. F. O'Neill? " 

''A. S. Neill ? " 

We shook hands, and then he began to 
talk. I wanted to tell him that his school 
was a pure delight, but I couldn't get a word 
in edgeways. If anything, he was over- 
explanatory, but I pardoned him, for I realised 
that the poor man's life must be spent in 
explaining himself to unbelievers. I disliked 
his tacit classing of me with the infidel, and 
I indignantly took the side of the infidel and 
asked him questions. Then he gave me of 
his best. 

He is a great man. I don't think he has 
any theoretical knowledge, and I believe that 
anyone could trip him up over Freud or Jung, 
Montessori or Froebel, Dewey or Homer I^ane ; 
but the man seems to know it all by instinct 
or intuition. To him creation is everything. 
I was half afraid that he might have the 
typical crank's belief in imposing his taste 
on the pupils, and I mentioned my doubt. 

'* No," he said, " we have a gramophone 
with fox-trots, ragtimes, Beethoven and Melba, 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 239 

and the children nearly always choose the 
best records." 

Ivove of beauty is a real thing in this 
school. The playground is full of bonny corners 
with flowers and bushes. The school writing 
books are bound in artistic wallpaper by 
the children, and hand-made frames enclose 
reproductions of good pictures on the walls. 

I saw no corporate teaching, and I should 
have asked O'Neill if he had any. If he 
hasn't I think he is wrong, for the other way — 
the learn-by-doing individual way — starves the 
group spirit. The class-teaching system has 
many faults, and O'Neill seems to have abolished 
spoon-feeding, but the class has one merit — 
it is a crowd. Each child measures himself 
against the others, not necessarily in com- 
petition. Perhaps it is the psychological effect 
of having an audience that I am trying to 
praise. Yes, that is it : the individual-work 
way is like a rehearsal of a play to empty 
seats ; the class-way is like a performance 
before a crowded house. It is a projection 
of one's ego outward. 

"This method," said O'Neill, "may be 
out-of-date in a month." 

I think highly of him for these words alone. 
He has no fixed beliefs about methods of study ; 
he himself learns by doing, and to-morrow 
will be cheerfully willing to scrap the method 
he is using to-day. If the ideal teacher is 
the man who is always learning, then O'Neill 



240 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

comes pretty near that ideal. I wish that 
every teacher in Britain could see his school. 

The big problem for the heretical teacher 
is the problem of order, or rather of disorder. 
When a child is free from authority, he usually 
leaves his path untidy ; he leaves his chisels 
on the bench or the ground ; he strews the 
floor with papers ; he throws his books all 
over^ the room. Now O'Neill's school was 
not untidy, and I marvelled. 

" Oh, the kiddies look after that,'' he ex- 
plained. " They have voluntary workers among 
themselves who do all that, and if a child 
does not do his job, the others naturally com- 
plain : ' Why did you take it on if you aren't 
going to do it properly ? ' " 

But somehow I am not convinced ; I want 
to know more about this business. To find 
so highly developed a social sense in small 
children runs dead against all my experience. 
I must write to O'Neill for further informatior. 



On re-reading the pages of this book I feel 
like throwing it on the fire. I find myself 
disagreeing with the statements I made a 
few weeks ago. When I began to write it 
I was a more or less complete Freudian, and 
in an airy fashion I explained away my actions. 
Why should pale blue be my favourite colour ? 
I asked myself this when I painted my cycle 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 241 

blue, and I found a ready answer in a reminis- 
cence .... my first sweetheart wore a blue 
tam-o'-shanter. This is called the " nothing 
but '' psychology. Do I dream of a train ? 
Quite simple ! It is merely '' nothing but '' 
a sexual symbol ! 

lyife is too complex for a " nothing but " 
psychology. lyast night a girl told me a 
sexual dream she had had, but when she 
gave her associations we found that the deep 
meaning of the dream had nothing to do 
with sex. Freud says that about every dream 
is the mark of the beast, but then I think he 
believes in original sin. 

I have been thinking a lot recently about 
the psychology of flogging. It is generally 
stated that the flogger is a sexual pervert, 
a Sadist, and undoubtedly there are patho- 
logical cases where men find sexual gratification 
in inflicting or in watching the infliction of 
pain. In the pathological case the gratifi- 
cation is conscious, but I believe that many 
respectable parents and teachers find an un- 
conscious gratification. It i-s absurd to say 
to a man like Macdonald : '' Your punishing 
is * nothing but ' Sadism.'' Yet I think that 
a little test might decide the matter. If 
the accused flogger is shocked or indignant 
at the idea I should be inclined to think that 
the accusation was a just one. 

If I say to Simpson : " Excuse my men- 
tioning it, old man, but I don't think you 



242 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

love your wife/' he will laugh heartily, for 
he has been married for a month only, and 
is still very much in love. His laugh shows 
that his love is real ; my rude remark touches 
no chord in his unconscious. But suppose 
I make a similar remark to Smith, who has 
been very much married for ten years ! He 
will hit me in the eye, thereby betraying 
the fact that my remark touched what his 
unconscious knows to be true. His blow is 
physically directed to me, but psychically 
he is hitting to defend his conscious from 
his unconscious. 

Hence if a fiogger is angry when I accuse 
him of being a Sadist, I guess that he is a 
Sadist. 

1 tried the experiment on Macdonald. He 
shook his head sadly. 

" Poor chap,'' he said feelingly, *' you're 
daft ! " 

"Right!" I said, ** you aren't a Sadist, 
anyway, Mac. You must flog because it is 
your method of self-assertion. As I've told 
you many times, you strap kids because 
wielding a strap is your childish way of showing 
your power." 

Then Mac became angry, and when I hinted 
that my remarks must have hit the bull's- 
eye .... he laughed again. He is a baffling 
study in psychology. 

" You don't know much about it, old chap," 
he said genially. 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 243 

*' Hardly an3^thing at all," I said with 
true modesty, '' only I know one thing about 
you, and that is that the fault always lies 
in yourself. When you flog Tom Murray, 
you are really chastising the Tom Murray 
in yourself .... that is, the part that your 
wife knows so well — the part of you that 
leaves the new graip out in the rain all night, 
that rebels against the authority of the School 
Board and the inspectorate. Tom is being 
crucified for your transgressions." 

Barrie, wizard as he is, failed to under- 
stand the full significance of Shakespeare's 
line : " The fault, dear Brutus, Hes not in 
our stars, but in ourselves." 



The opposite oi the Sadist is the Masochist 
— the person who finds sexual gratification 
in being beaten or bullied. When 'Arriet 
proudly boasts about the black eye that 'Arry 
gave her on Saturday night, she is being 
masochistic, and the woman who hkes to be 
bullied by the strong, silent man is likewise 
a masochist. I do not say *' nothing but " 
a masochist, because she is also a Sadist, for 
Sadism, and Masochism^ are complementary m 
the same person. 

It is an understood fact that many people 
find joy in suffering, and I can recollect feehng 
something akin to joy when the dentist, before 



244 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

the days of the local an aesthetic, used to lay 
hold on my molars. 

Hence I look back to the day when I 
whacked Peter Smith for cruelty to a calf, 
and I acknowledge that I was wrong. I recall 
explaining to him that I wanted him to 
realise what suffering meant, but I was com- 
pletely mistaken. If Peter were a Sadist in 
his cruelty, my cruelty to him was giving 
unconscious gratification to the Masochistic 
part of him. If his cruelty to the calf was 
due to his self-assertion again I did the wrong 
thing, for the fear evoked by my strap merely 
inhibited his dCvSire to assert himself in cud- 
gelling calves. I think now that there was 
nothing to be done ; his cruelty showed that 
his whole education had been wrong. Had 
he been allowed to create all the way up from 
one week old he wotdd have appHed his interest 
to making rabbit-hutches instead of to beating 
calves. 

I remember a questioner at one of my 
lectures. I had been trying to elaborate the 
release theory, and had said that a boy should 
be encouraged to make a noise so that he 
will release all his interest in noise as power. 

" If a boy liked torturing cats, would you 
encourage him on the theory that suppression 
by an adult would cause the child to retain 
his interest in torturing cats ? " 

" Certainly not,'' I said, and the lady crowed. 
I do disHke questioners at any time, but 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 245 

when they crow . . . . ! However, I tried 
to hide the murder in my heart by smiHng. 
" What would you do ? '' she asked sweeth^ 
*' I don't know, madam," I said, " but I 
can make a rapid guess .... I very pro- 
bably would use the toe of my boot on him, 
thereby showing that my own interest in 
cruelty was still alive. But five minutes later 
I should try to discover what was at the 
back of the boy's mind/' 

Not long ago I studied a small boy whose 
chief pleasure was in pulling bees' wings off. 
I never mentioned bees to him, but I got 
him to talk about himself. He was suffering 
from a deep hatred of his teacher, and he 
had a bad inferiority complex. He feared 
to play games like football and hockey because 
of his sense of inferiority. All that was wrong 
with him was that he was regressing. L,ife 
was too difficult for him, and he took refuge 
in his infantile past ; his pulling off wings 
was the destructiveness of the infant. But 
the important thing to remember is that 
destructiveness is simply constructiveness gone 
wrong. The child is born good, and all his 
instincts are to do good. Bad behaviour is 
the result of thwarted desire to do good. 
This is shown in the case of Tommy on page 115. 



At one time I w^as absolutely certain that 
the Great War was caused by economic fac- 



246 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

tors ; British and German capital were com- 
peting, and the losing party took up the 
sword. I am not so certain now. It may 
be that the cataclysm was a natural ebullition 
of human nature, and as a cause the economic 
rivalr}^ ma}^ have been jUvSt as insignificant 
as the murder of the Archduke. 

During the last few decades education has 
been almost wholly intellectual and material ; 
intellectual education gave us the don, and 
material education gave us the cotton-spinner. 
The emotional and the spiritual m mankind 
had no outlet. In the unconscious of man 
there is a God and a Devil, and intellectual 
activities afford no means of expression to 
either. And when any godhke or devilish 
libido can find no outlet it regresses to infantile 
primitive forms ; thus, while the brain of 
man was concerned with mathematics and 
logic, the heart of man was seeking primitive 
things — cruelty, hate, and blood. 

It may be then that the war was the direct 
result of the world's bad system of education. 
No boy will destroy property if he is free 
to create property, and no nation will take 
to killing if it is free to be creative. Intellectual 
education allows no freedom for the creative 
impulse ; it not only starves the creative 
impulse but it drives it into rebellion. An 
outlet is always a door to purification. The 
old men who sat at home hated the Hun 
because their libido was being bottled up, 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 247 

but the young men who were using up their 
libido in fighting talked cheerfully of " Old 
Fritz/' The chained dog soon becomes savage, 
and the chained libido reverts to savagery 
also. 

I have often said that the outrages of the 
German troops in Belgium became under- 
standable to me when I studied a Sects school 
where suppressive discipline turned good boys 
into demons. The brutality of the German 
army w^as a natural result of the brutality 
of their discipline. So is it in the individual 
soul, and in the national soul. Intellectualism 
and materialism were the Prussian drill- 
sergeants who enslaved the emotional Hfe of 
the citizen and of the nation. War was a 
means of releasing this pent-up emotion. 

The ultimate cure for war is the releasing 
of the beast in the heart of mankind .... 
not the releasing after chaining him up, but 
the relea.sing of the beast from the beginning. 
Personally I do not beheve that he is a wild 
beast until we make him one by chaining 
him ; he is primitive and animal and amoral, 
but I beheve that by kind treatment we can 
make him our ally in living a goodly hfe. 
The Devil is merely a chained God. 

The problem for man and for mankind is 
to reconcile the God and the Devil in himself. 
The saint represses the devil ; the sinner 
represses the god. The atheist cries : '' There 



248 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

is no God ! '* because he has repressed the 
God in himself. Then, again, many people 
project their personal devil ; the men who 
shouted '' Hang the Kaiser ! '* were subject- 
ively crying " Hang the Devil in me ! '* 

Who and what is this devil we carry in 
our hearts ? We cannot tame him unless we 
can know him. The Freudians would say 
that he is the primitive unconscious, the 
tree-dweller in us. But that explanation is 
not enough for me. The tiger has no devil 
in him, and why should our remote savage 
ancestors leave us a d^vil as legacy ? Yet 
the tiger is a devil whenever man formulates 
a law against killing ; the man-eater becomes 
bad because he is a danger to man, and because 
the tiger is bad it is assumed that man is 
good. The ox that is slaughtered for our 
dinners might well look upon man as its 
special objective devil. 

I have often argued that it is Authority 
that makes the beast in children a wild beast. 
That is true, but it does not go down to first 
causes. Why do adults exercise authority ? 
To keep down the devil in themselves, the 
beast that their parents and teachers made 
wild by authority. Truly a vicious circle 1 
But the devil is the cause of authority in 
the beginning. 

Since there is no devil in the tiger and 
the ox, the animalism of man cannot be his 
devil. But man made his animalism a devil 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 249 

when he began to have ideals. Then it was 
that he began to talk of cmcif3dng the flesh ; 
then it was that the spirit was wilhng but 
the flesh was weak. The devil in man is 
the negative of man's ego-ideal. The ethical 
self says that honesty is good, and dishonesty 
comes to be of the devil ; it says that love 
is good, and hate then becomes devilivsh. No 
ego-ideal, no devil. The ox has no ego-ideal ; 
therefore it has no devil. Man invented the 
devil to account for his failures. 

This brings me to the question : why should 
man want to have an ego-ideal ? WTiy should 
he praise self-sacrifice, love, charity, honesty, 
unselfishness, while he contemns hate, murder, 
cruelty, stealing, selfishness ? It might be 
argued that he praises those attributes that 
make for the good of the herd, but I cannot 
take this argument as final. Rather am I 
mclined to look for the answer in what we 
vaguely call the divine. I think that there 
is a power .... call it God or intuition 
or the superconscious or what-not .... 
that draws man toward higher things. This 
spark of the divine raises man above the 
beast of the field, but yesterday he was the 
beast of the field, and like the nouveau riche, 
he scorns his humble origins. 

I am forced to conclude that wars will 
not cease until man reaHses that his ego-ideal 
must be capable of being the working partner 
of his primitive animalism. When that time 



250 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

comes man will know that he is neither god 
nor devil, but .... mere man. 

****** 

I am spending my days wandering round 
lyondon suburbs looking for a school. Of 
an evening I sit and think about how I shall 
furnish it. There will be no desks ; instead 
there will be tables for writing and drawing 
on, chairs of all descriptions — arm-chairs, deck- 
chairs, straight backed chairs, stools. The 
children will make the tables and stools, and 
we may make a combined effort to make 
and upholster an arm-chair. 

Then we must have at least one typewriter, 
not for office use, but for the children's use. 
The children will use it to type their novels 
and poems, and I think they would be tempted 
to type out poems from Keats and Coleridge, 
binding their own anthologies in leather or 
coloured paper. 

There will be no school readers and no 
school poetry books. I hope that with the 
aid of the typewriter each child will make 
his own selection of prose and poetry. 

The wall decorations will be left to the 
children, and if they bring bad, sentimental 
prints from the Christmas numbers I shall 
say nothing when they hang them up. But 
as an active member of the communit^^ I 
shall bring reproductions of the work of Rem- 
brandt, Velasquez, Augelo, Augustus John 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 251 

Cezanne, Nevinson ; I shall buy Colour every 
month. 

So with music. I shall sing Eliza Jane 
with them if they want to sing Eliza JanCs 
but I shall bring to their notice To Music 
(Schumann), Blake's Jerusalem, and the bonny 
old English songs Hke Golden Slumbers, Now 
is the Month of Maying, Polly Oliver. Then 
a gramophone is a necessity, and all kinds 
of records will be necessary — Beethoven, Stra- 
vinsky, Rimski-Korsikoff, Harry I^auder, Fox 
Trots, Sousa. O'Neill told me that his I^an- 
cashire kiddies have tired of ragtime, and 
are now pla3dng classical music only. Person- 
ally, I haven't reached that standard of taste 
yet ; I still have Fox Trot moods. I also 
want a player-piano — an Angelus, if possible. 

Now for the library. I shall leave the 
choice of periodicals to the community, and 
I expect to find them select a list of this 
kind : — Scout, Boy's Own Paper, GirVs Own 
Paper, Popular Mechanics, My Magazine, Punch, 
Chips, Comic Cuts, Tit-Bits, Answers, Strand, 
Sketch, Sphere. It will be interesting to v/atch 
the career of Chips ; 1 will not be surprised 
if the communit}^ tires of Chips in a month. 

Our book library will be stocked from the 
children's homes, I fancy. Each child will 
bring his or her favourite novel, and gladh^ 
hand it round. I shall certainly hand on 
my own fiction library :—- Conan Doyle, Wells, 
Jack London, Rider Haggard, Cutcliffe Hyne, 



252 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

Guy Boothby, Barrie, O. Henry, Leacock, 
Jacobs, lyeonard Merrick, Seton Merriman, 
Stanley Weyman, and a host of others. 

No, this won't do ! How can I furnish 
before my self-governing school decides what 
furniture it will have ? The children ma^'' 
demand desks and time-tables, but I do not 
think it hkely. Anyhow, I am counting my 
chickens before they are hatched. 



XIV. 

I FINISH this book in the place where I began 
it, in Forfarshire, but not in Tarbonny 
Village, Hustling Herbert Jenkins sent 
me the galley proofs this morning with an 
urgent demand that I should return them at 
once. I do dislike publishers. At first I took 
them at their own valuation : I believed what 
they said. 

*' Machines waiting," Jenkins would wire, 
" Send MS. at once." 

And I, simple I, would sit up late correcting 
proofs. I know better now. I know that 
Jenkins always divides time by 20. His " at 
once " means that twenty days hence he will 
say to his Secretary : " That new book of 
Neiirs .... has it gone to the printer 
yet ? " And his Secretary will 'phone down 
to the office secretary and say : " You've got 
to send Neill's new book to the printer." Then 
this lady will order the office-boy to take the 
MS. to the printer . . . and I bet the little 
devil reads Deadwood Dick on the Boomerang 
Prairie as he crawls to the printer's office with 
my masterpiece under his arm. 

Hence, understanding Jenkins, I tossed the 



254 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

proofs into a corner this morning, and went out 
to continue the game of ring quoits that NelHe 
and I had to give up as darkness fell last night. 
Nellie is a Dundee lassie of thirteen and she is 
spending her holidays with her auntie here. 

Nellie won, and we sat down on the bank and 
I began to ask her about her school-life. 

" I dinna like the school, and I wish I was 
left,'* she said. 

** Tell me why you dislike it, Nellie.'' 

** If ye speak ye get the strap." 

*' What ! " I cried, " are you never allowed 
to speak ? " 

" Only at playtime/' she replied. *' And ye 
never get less than six scuds." 

And it was only the other day that a lady 
wrote me saying that when I preach against 
Prussianism in schools I am merely resuscitat- 
ing a dead bogey for the purpose of knocking it 
down. 

I get quite a lot of information of schools 
from children. I remember when I was in 
Lyme Regis last Easter I went out sketching 
one day. As I passed a village school a troupe 
of happy children came out. Joy lit up their 
faces. 

" The ideal school ! " I cried, and stopped to 
speak to them. 

" Tell me, children, tell me why you have 
laughter in your eyes," I said, '' tell me of youj 
happy school." 

The oldest boy grinned. 



A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 255 

" Master's gone off for the day to a funeral," 
he said. 

I walked on deep in thought. 

Nellie dislikes school. What a tragedy. She 
is a dear sweet child with kind eyes and a bonny 
smile. She spoke frankly to me at first but 
when I told her that I was a teacher she looked 
at me with fear and (I smiled at this) dropped 
her Dundee dialect and answered me in School 
English. I had to throw plantain heads at her 
for a full five minutes before the look of fear 
left her eyes and her dialect returned. 

** I dinna believe ye are a teacher," she said 
to-night. 

*' Why not ? " 

" Ye're no like ane," she said hesitatingly. 
*' Ye're ower — ower daft." 

" But why shouldn't a teacher be daft ? " I 
asked. 

" They shud be respectable," she said, *' or 
the children winna respect them." 

I looked alarmed. 

" What ! " I cried, '* don't you respect me ? " 

She laughed gaily. 

'* No ! " she cried, then she added seriously : 
" But I'd like to be at your schule." 

She returns to Dundee to-morrow, to a class 
of fifty, where silence reigns. Poor Nellie ! 
What worries me is that when Nellie's teacher 
reads this book she will most probably agree 
with Nellie's remark that I'm '' daft ". But 
she won't mean what Nellie meant. 



256 A DOMINIE IN DOUBT 

A telegraph girl approached. 
" Machines are waiting. — Jenkins." 

Nellie looked anxious. 

*' That's twa telegrams ye've got the day," 
she said. " Is onybody deid ? " 

I looked at the words on the telegraph form. 

" No, NeUie, unfortunately no ! " I said 
slowly, and I went in to read my galley proofs. 



The End. 



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